Chapters 9, 10, & 13

I was really excited/surprised to see a list of all the concrete, applicable ideas in chapter 9 that any teacher could incorporate into their writing workshop. I feel like a lot of our classes discuss theories, but never give real examples of how to put the theories into practice so this chapter was refreshing. This chapter gave me many real ideas that I could see myself incorporating into my future classroom.

I think chapter 10 really broke down writing curriculum easily in an easy to understand way. I feel like the Georgia Performance standards are a nit-picky, long checklist of things so this chapter was surprising because it covered the same curriculum but it painted the picture in broad strokes instead of small strokes.

Chapter 13 was interesting because it described the parts of a focus lesson. Last semester I saw my teacher's attempts at a focus lesson, but most of these lessons would fall flat. The students weren't interested in what she was reading and they were unable to make the connection from the lesson to their own writing so I'm glad this chapter gave me some ideas on how to create a good focus lesson.

The Writing Workshop Ch. 1-5

I was excited to start reading "The Writing Workshop" book, because last semester my mentor teacher used the writing workshop technique in her classroom. I didn't really like how she had set up her writing workshop so I was wondering if her use of the technique was typical or if there were other components that she left out.

I was surprised by one of the main goals in writing workshop is having teachers help students find good reasons to write. This idea is totally opposite of what I saw happening in my mentor teacher's classroom. There the students were given a topic orprompt by her that they had to write about. I think that when students pick their own topics they care more deeply about them and put forth their best effort.

I also enjoyed reading the pages where the author talked about what the tone of a classroom looks like and sounds like. I often think that tone only applies to talking so as long as you have the "right" tone when talking to your students then it should be fine, but after reading I realized that tone also applies to how the room is set up, what is on the walls, what materials are used, and many other things.