Ch. 7, 8, and 19

Chapter 7 gave me some really great ideas on how to set up a classroom to try and avoid many of the typical writing workshop distractions. No classroom will be set up perfectly, but it's important to have a space where students come together to participate in the focus lesson. It's also important to have spaces where students can spread out and work comfortably on their writing. How the supplies are set up is also something to think about. I really liked the author's point about talking to students who use a lot of supplies about the "method of their madness." I often find my teacher limiting or reprimanding students who use a lot of paper, or tape, or whatever. But instead of jumping to "John, stop wasting all that paper" I need to ask students "john, will you explain to me what you are using this paper for?"

Chapter 8 is about the "slightly out of hand feeling" I know this feeling very well from my previous experience with writing workshop. It seemed as if each student was in a totally different place in the writing process, or there would be differences in how students write (quiet classroom vs. talking loudly or students would have papers, books, pencils spread out everywhere) and as someone who likes organization it would often overwhelm me. This chapter made me feel a little more comfortable with the idea of managing the out of hand feeling that happens during a writing workshop.

I really liked the idea of publishing deadlines. When I saw writing workshop the students knew their work would be published, but the teacher didn't really talk too much about it so it was hard for the students to see the goal of their writing (publishing and sharing their published writing with others)