Blog 1: "Teach the writer, then the writing"

Writer’s workshop is a great way to teach students new skills while still giving them the chance to free write. Tompkins (2019) introduces us to the five stages that are writer’s workshop. She states that the 5 stages are: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Publishing (Tompkins, 2019).  Each one of the stages is important as it helps to guide the students through the writing process. However I do think that when it comes to teaching students new ideas, that it should be done in either the prewriting, revising or editing stage.

 

In the prewriting stage, students are brainstorming ideas of what they want to write about. This is where they think of what their topic is and what audience they are writing to. The prewriting stage is the stage that they start setting up what their writing is going to look like. This would be the perfect time to teach a mini lesson that might affect their writing. As a teacher, this would be the time that I would do a mini lesson on the different types of writing or how the writing should look like. For example, the prewriting stage would be the best time to teach a lesson on what a persuasive writing look like. It would allow the students to learn the skills they would need to write that type of piece before they actually started to write.

While in the revising and editing stage, students are able to go back and look at what they wrote and what they might want to change. The revision stage is for making any changes to the writing such as adding or deleting details, while editing is correcting any mistakes that were found. Both stages can be the perfect time for teaching students new skills that have to do with what they already wrote.  The students already have a product written and can use it while you are teaching them the new ideas and skills. For example, the revising stage would be the perfect place to do a mini lesson on how to organize your ideas to make them flow. The students can listen to the mini lesson and then look at their work to make sure that their ideas flow.

I knew that talking the time to prewrite and draft your papers were important, but I never realized how important they are. Tompkins (2019) mentions that “Writers participate in these activities during prewriting: Choosing a topic; Considering a purpose, audience, and form; Generating and organizing ideas for writing” (p.5). I never realized how important it is to think about what the purpose is of the writing that you are doing and the audience that you are writing for. The way you write differs depending on who you are writing for. Drafting is a great way to have students start the writing process. I feel like a lot of students get nervous to write because they think that their first copy has to be perfect. I love the idea that Tompkins (2019) mentioned about having the students skip lines while they are writing in this stage. It gives the students room so that that they can go back and make revisions within their writing. She also added “Similarly, they write on only one side of a sheet of paper so that the paper can be cut apart or rearranged during the next stage” (Tompkins, 2019, p.8). I really like that idea as it helps to show students how ideas can be moved around in the paper. By incorporating these ideas, my students would be able to enhance their ability to plan what they are writing. They would be able to write in a way that they are able to make changes and revisions.

My biggest challenge with running a writers/readers workshop is that every student is in a different stage with their work. I would always have a hard time remembering which student was in which stage and how I could help them. One of the recommendations Tompkins (2019) gives is to have a chart with all the stages so that the students can either clip their name on what stage they are in or put their popsicle stick in what stage they are in. This would allow me as a teacher to quickly see what stage everybody is in and give me a better idea of how I can help them individually.

Tompkins, G. E.  (2019). Teaching writing:  Balancing process and product (7^th ed.).  Upper

Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.

Preston, C. Writer’s workshop clip chart. Organized classroom, less stress more effectiveness for teachers. https://organizedclassroom.com/writers-workshop-clip-chart/

(2011). Prewriting strategies. KU writing center. Create. Compose. Communicate. http://writing.ku.edu/prewriting-strategies