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)

Ch. 14, 15, and 17

These three chapters about conferring, sharing, and assessment were very interesting to read. I had seen what my mentor considered good conferencing, good sharing, and good assessment so I thought it would be interesting to see how it lined up with what the author considered good conferring, sharing, and assessment.

I like how the author broke a good conference down into four parts. The first part is research and I really liked how she not only read their writing to see where they were, but she also asked them questions about how they thought their writing was going. I had never heard of asking the student to describe how writing was going, so I thought that was a really cool way to hear what the students are thinking. I also liked her idea of keeping a record. When I saw writing workshop in the classroom my teacher always had trouble keeping up with where everyone was in the writing process. By keeping records about what happened at a conference then you help to eliminate this problem.

When I saw the title of the sharing chapter my first thought was great a whole chapter about sitting in a circle and having students share what they wrote. I had no idea how the author could write a whole chapter about sharing. But after reading it I was pleasantly surprised. She presented many ideas and different ways to have students share their work, besides the typical whole class share.

I liked the chapter on assessment because it presented an interesting way to assess that was unlike my experience with assessment in writing workshop. In the classroom I was in there was a grade wide rubric with different standards on it to assess the children's writing. I liked the author's ideas much better and hope to use them when I assess my future student's writing.

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.