What does a successful writing workshop look like? Here are strategies that will ensure successful writing workshops all year.
These are my favorite, and most effective, ways of teaching writing to elementary students. You may decide that teaching writing is
It's the middle of your writing block and you sidle up to a student to have a writing conference. And it goes great. You feel like you made a difference with that kid. You feel like you accomplished something. But then you start doing the math... "Let's see, I just spent 8 minutes with this student, so at this rate it'll only take me... hmmm... 9,000 years to meet with everyone." It quickly gets overwhelming and you may start wondering, why even bother? Holding one-to-one writing conferences with students is a really effective way to help them grow, but conferences that last 8-10 minutes a pop just aren't sustainable. Even 5-minute writing conferences are tough. So are 4 minute writing conferences. 2 minutes. That's where we want to be. Now, before you start rolling your eyes telling me you'll never get anything out of a two-minute conference, hang on. Let's just for a second assume that you CAN have a meaningful, productive writing conference with a student in two minutes. Okay? If that's the case, what would that allow? If we had two-minute conferences with a class of 30 students, it will only take us four 15-20 minute writing sessions to meet with every student one-to-one. Less than a week to see everybody! That's motivating. Now I need to prove to you that two minutes is enough. That with two minutes, we can scooch a student writer forward. So let's dig into how to have a worthwhile two-minute writing conference. We'll break our time into three sections: Learn, Show, and Push. I want you to keep in mind this isn't meant to be a formula, but I also recognize that it can be really helpful to see exactly how those two minutes might get filled. So let's meet with one of our students, Leroy, and see how a two-minute conference might run. "Hi Leroy." And boom... our two minutes have begun. With the first thirty seconds or so, we LEARN. We check our notes for the focus of recent conferences with Leroy. (We do this quickly, like 5 seconds quick: Okay, I met with Leroy about leads and setting details recently.) We orient ourselves to what Leroy is working on right now in his writing. (We do this quickly, like 5 seconds quick: Okay, Leroy looks to be drafting his personal narrative about losing his gerbil.) We scan a chunk of Leroy's writing, preferably what he's been writing today and/or yesterday, looking for something to focus on with him: We're looking for progress related to the focus of one of our recent conferences. (In Leroy's case, we look at his lead and how he describes the setting. We might also ask Leroy how he's doing with one of these skills.) Do we need to revisit one of these skills? Or, Can we build off one of these skills, either by taking the skill to a more sophisticated level or by choosing a related skill to focus on? We're also open to a glaring need, unrelated to a recent conference, that we think should be a priority to address and therefore trumps the skills we were focusing on before. What if nothing jumps out at us? As a default, we'll use the writing skill/strategy we taught in a recent whole-group minilesson as the focus for this writing conference. With the next sixty seconds or so, we SHOW. This is the meat of the conference: the teaching part, the coaching part, the modeling part. We've chosen something to focus on, so let's do it! With Leroy, let's imagine we noticed him describing his setting, and we think he's ready to take it to the next level. So we're going to first show Leroy what we noticed: "Let's look at this little part you wrote here, Leroy. I see that near the beginning of your piece you wrote two details about the setting, one about being in your house and one about it being a Saturday morning. I can tell you are trying to think about that part of your writing. Then we model something new for Leroy: "So Leroy, when writers are trying to establish their setting, they do what you did: they describe the place and the time. But to really be successful, they use sensory details that really help the reader imagine the setting. For example, I see that most of your narrative so far is taking place in your bedroom. So we could try adding another setting detail that can help the reader picture your bedroom. If it was my bedroom, I might write, "The stench of my dirty socks strewn all over my bedroom floor almost knocked me over." Do you see how that helps the reader put themselves there in my room? What sense did I use with that extra detail? With the last 30 seconds or so, we PUSH. We transition from showing and modeling to giving the student an action step. "So Leroy, think about your own bedroom and how it was on that morning when your story took place. I want you to try adding a sensory detail that will help bring the setting alive for your reader." Now we feel out the student. Dots might be connecting. Or blank stares might be forming. Or anything in between: If Leroy gets started right away, we observe and simply be a sounding board for him. If Leroy struggles to get started, we might make a suggestion or ask a leading question to help him get the ball rolling. "I added a detail involving smell. You could do that too, or think about sounds, feels, or specific sights." If Leroy stares blankly at his writing, not sure what to do, that's okay. He might not be ready to make this jump, or maybe he does understand but this particular situation is just stumping him. Again, we might make a suggestion or ask a leading question. Depending on the student and the situation, we don't necessarily need to stay and continue to watch the student work. We leave the student with a closing push: "As you continue writing, Leroy, and your setting moves, I want you to think about those extra sensory details here and there that you can add, okay?" Our two minutes have ended. We make a quick note about the conference and move on. Here's a little chart that sums up the three parts of our two-minute conference: I highly encourage you to get out your phone, set it on the student's desk, and have the stopwatch running during the conference. It's the only way to really keep the timing a priority. There will be conferences when you think, this student needs more of my time, I can't just whisk along and move on here. I get it, that's understandable. Just remember though, if you do that very often, you're going to be right back where you started in this whole thing. Utilizing this two-minute outline with your students is one key component of a practical and effective system of writing conferences. But what about keeping all the interruptions at bay? And what about other types of interactions like strategy groups and check-ins? And what about the forms on which to keep records? And how does this change the big picture of my writing block? What does a week of independent writing really look like? Don't worry! Head over to my blog where I get deep into ALL of those questions in my post, How to Have Successful Writing Conferences with Student Writers. You can pick up all the forms I use there, too!
Teacher Truth- I used to despise teaching Writer's Workshop. I understood the structure of the workshop model and the focus of each grading period, however, I didn't really know WHAT to teach each day during my mini-lessons. Fast forward a couple of years, and I had an amazing opportunity to visit an amazing teacher's classroom and observe her in action and I fell in love with her writing instruction! And then the next year, my amazing team and I decided to each tackle one subject and share our plans. I chose writing (even though it still wasn't my favorite) so I could spend more time learning about teaching writing and *hopefully* fall in love. It worked! Now that I LOVE writing, I wanted to share what I currently do to launch Writer's Workshop! I've taken pieces from what I love from different resources to make what works for me and my students. This post is a little peek into my mini-lessons, anchor charts, and mentor texts that I love! I posted them in the order that I usually teach each lesson, however you can change them around to make it work for you and your group of writers! For each lesson I shared an example of an anchor chart! In my classroom, I always prepped the anchor charts with the title and an image first, but added the content WITH my students during the mini-lesson! The books that I have posted are linked to my Amazon affiliate store. If you purchase them through the link, I will receive a small commission! This might just be one of the most important lessons to launch Writer's Workshop because it explains exactly what it is and what students can expect from their teacher and their own expectations. This is always the very first lesson that I teach when beginning Writer's Workshop and I love using the pie chart as a great visual! I begin this mini lesson using the book Arthur Writes a Story to get my little writers thinking about writing! After we complete the large anchor chart together, my students completed their own mini-anchor chart to glue in their writer's notebooks! I love using these mini-anchor charts because my students can reference them at anytime, even if the large anchor chart is not visible in our classroom anymore! After this lesson, I continue to follow this model for our writing instruction each and everyday! The independent writing time is always the most important and longest part of our writing time! For the next mini-lesson, we discuss WHAT writers actually write! Some groups do a great job at brainstorming different types of writing, while others need a little push! This would be a great mini-lesson to bring out different types of writing to show your little writers! Think cookbooks, Christmas cards, printed e-mails, grocery lists, newspapers, magazines, etc. You can put all these items in a basket to have your writers explore independently, or pull them out while you are making your list as a class! After creating a list as a class, students can either create their own list OR they can simply glue in a similar list into their writer's notebooks or folders! This is another important mini-lesson! It really allows your little writers to think about WHY writers write and why they should write! I love using the book Author A True Story by Helen Lester because it is a story from an author's point of view and allows writers to hear why an actual author chose to write! In my experience, sometimes writers have a difficult time determining WHY they write and might need some guidance to brainstorm ideas for the anchor chart! This particular mini-lesson sets up your expectations for HOW students behave during Writer's Workshop. Using the book Ralph Tells a Story, you can show students what not to do during writing time. This really allows them to brainstorm ideas of what they should be doing during writing! I always teach this lesson right after the {What Good Writers Do} lesson because it always focuses on writing behaviors. For this particular lesson, I reference back to Ralph Tells a Story to help my writers determine what writing should look like, sound like, and feel like in our classroom! For this mini-lesson, I always ask my writers what our classroom would look like, sound like, and feel like if one of our administrators walked into our classroom during writing time. Depending on your class and group of writers, you could complete this in one lesson or split it up into three different lessons! This particular mini-lesson discusses the tools that writers need in order to write. I'm going to be honest, if I'm struggling with time this is probably the first lesson that I would cut out because you could also discuss it in the What Good Writers Do mini-lesson. But, this is a good lesson to go over all the tools that your students can use in your classroom and your expectations for using them. Writing journals or folders? Pencils, erasers, pens for editing? Extra graphic organizers, writing pages? Writing prompts? Word wall or personal dictionaries? There are TONS of writing tools for the writers in your classroom! It's really important to talk about your expectations and even discuss with your writers how they should set up their writing journal or folder! It's common for little writers to not able to keep their belongings organized, so this is a great lesson to really focus on that! Using the book The Day the Crayons Quit is a fun book to use for this lesson because you talk about what would happen if you didn't have access to certain writing tools! "Mrs. Dills, I'm done!" If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that statement, I would probably own my own island! I don't know what it is, but at the beginnin writers always think they are completely finished as soon as they finish with one writing piece! This anchor chart stays up in my classroom for a very long time and I reference it A LOT! This book is a great story to read for this mini-lesson because they are SUPER short stories and allows you to discuss how writers could add lots of details to complete their story!. Then, you could discuss what else writers could do when they think they are done! Because of course, they've really just begun! In my first and second grade classroom, it was very common for my writers to freeze when they couldn't spell a word correctly- especially at the beginning of the year! Some would ask how to spell the word and some would just sit there and not write anything else! This mini-lesson really focuses on stretching out their words the best that they can instead of focusing on spelling the word perfectly. For this mini-lesson, I don't read a mentor text but instead I really focus on modeling how to stretch out words by listening for each sound and then writing them down. I go over each step with the students and then model writing my own story using this strategy. There are times that my writers still have a difficult time stretching out words for their writing, so during this lesson I also give them a personal dictionary. I didn't have a word wall in my classroom, but instead each of my students received a personal dictionary to keep in their desks. I like printing this 2 pages to a sheet and allowing them to keep it in a pocket in the back of their writing journals or folder! And FINALLY, it's time to really dig into story writing! I absolutely LOVE hearing from my little story tellers and I really look forward to teaching them HOW to write a story! This can definitely be broken into multiple days if you want to focus on modeling each step! However, it can easily be taught in one lesson! A Squiggly Story is such a fun little book about a little boy that is learning how to express himself, just like your writers as they learn how to write a story! This is another important anchor chart that I refer back to a lot during my writing instruction. A lot of times writers want to skip right to the writing part, but it's important for them to realize that there is a process! This is a great introductory lesson to the writing process for your little learners! I model this a lot in my classroom! This lesson really focuses on allowing students to come up with their own ideas for writing. I teach this after the {How to Write a Story} lesson because then I can really focus in on the first point, which is thinking of an idea! I like to reference the book Ralph Tells a Story again because the character in that book really struggled with thinking of an idea to write. The character in The Best Story has a similar problem, but she figures out that she should write from her heart! After reading the book, we talk about what is in our heart. Then, we talk about maps and their purpose. It would be really great to show students a picture of an actual map during this lesson! Then, I begin creating my own heart map and have students create their heart maps to keep in their writing journals to use throughout the year! Oh my goodness! I always, always, always have writers that get stuck or frozen and just don't know what to do! Stuck is the cutest book about a little boy whose kite gets stuck in a tree and he is determined to get it out! For this mini-lesson, I really like having my students brainstorm ideas for what they can do when they get stuck during writing time! So the anchor chart will look different each year because it really depends on the ideas that the group comes up with! Then, during independent writing time my students get to practice using those ideas if they get stuck! This might be one of my FAVORITE writing mini-lessons, which is crazy because not a lot of writing actually takes place! This mini-lesson shows the importance of illustrations and having them match your words! All of these book options are great because they have very little or no words at all, and students have to look at each illustration to tell the story. For this particular mini-lesson, I did not create an actual anchor chart with the students. Instead, I drew a simple picture and had students tell me what was happening in MY story! Then, my writers had to do the same thing! I had their return to their desks and they drew a detailed illustration. Afterwards, in pairs, students had to look at each other's illustrations and try to explain what was happening just from their drawings. This really helped them see the importance of their illustrations! To introduce the Writing Process, I like reading the book Rocket Writes a Story and discussing each part with my writers. Of course, this is truly just an introduction and students will not go through the entire writing process in one lesson! However, it is good that they have an understanding of each component and are aware of the process as they begin their writing units! I allow my writers to glue this mini-anchor chart into their writing notebooks so they always have a visual reminder of the writing process even if it is not currently displayed in our classroom! After students have an understanding of the writing process, we spend more time on how writers can fix or "fancy" their writing using the book Fancy Nancy! Although we go over editing and revising in a mini-lesson, this is definitely not the last time that my writers are introduced to this concept. I model editing and revising throughout the entire year and they have A LOT of practice working independently, with writing partners, and during writing conferences! For these lesson ideas in one easy FREE document, click here or the images below! For the mini-anchor charts click here or the picture below! For the personal dictionary click here or the picture below! For the FREE writing notebook cover and dividers, get the password to my Resource Library here! Or click on the image below to get the password emailed to you! Send it my way! Powered By ConvertKit For all of the subject covers click here or the image below! For the books click here or the image below for my Amazon Affiliate storefront! How do YOU launch Writer's Workshop in your classroom!? I hope this post gave you some ideas for your classroom! If you want to save these ideas for later, make sure to pin the image below!
Wondering how to teach how to writing? These easy steps include writing workshop prompts & topics perfect for kindergarten & 1st grade kids.
Are you ready to start using a writing workshop in your class? Here are some tips to getting started, organizing lessons, and managing a workshop effectively.
Teaching writing using a workshop model made my instruction so much more meaningful! You can read about my typical day of writing by clicking HERE. Getting the writing workshop started at the beginning of the school year can be so daunting! It doesn't have to be! Let me help you to get started! I have
Teacher Truth- I used to despise teaching Writer's Workshop. I understood the structure of the workshop model and the focus of each grading period, however, I didn't really know WHAT to teach each day during my mini-lessons. Fast forward a couple of years, and I had an amazing opportunity to visit an amazing teacher's classroom and observe her in action and I fell in love with her writing instruction! And then the next year, my amazing team and I decided to each tackle one subject and share our plans. I chose writing (even though it still wasn't my favorite) so I could spend more time learning about teaching writing and *hopefully* fall in love. It worked! Now that I LOVE writing, I wanted to share what I currently do to launch Writer's Workshop! I've taken pieces from what I love from different resources to make what works for me and my students. This post is a little peek into my mini-lessons, anchor charts, and mentor texts that I love! I posted them in the order that I usually teach each lesson, however you can change them around to make it work for you and your group of writers! For each lesson I shared an example of an anchor chart! In my classroom, I always prepped the anchor charts with the title and an image first, but added the content WITH my students during the mini-lesson! The books that I have posted are linked to my Amazon affiliate store. If you purchase them through the link, I will receive a small commission! This might just be one of the most important lessons to launch Writer's Workshop because it explains exactly what it is and what students can expect from their teacher and their own expectations. This is always the very first lesson that I teach when beginning Writer's Workshop and I love using the pie chart as a great visual! I begin this mini lesson using the book Arthur Writes a Story to get my little writers thinking about writing! After we complete the large anchor chart together, my students completed their own mini-anchor chart to glue in their writer's notebooks! I love using these mini-anchor charts because my students can reference them at anytime, even if the large anchor chart is not visible in our classroom anymore! After this lesson, I continue to follow this model for our writing instruction each and everyday! The independent writing time is always the most important and longest part of our writing time! For the next mini-lesson, we discuss WHAT writers actually write! Some groups do a great job at brainstorming different types of writing, while others need a little push! This would be a great mini-lesson to bring out different types of writing to show your little writers! Think cookbooks, Christmas cards, printed e-mails, grocery lists, newspapers, magazines, etc. You can put all these items in a basket to have your writers explore independently, or pull them out while you are making your list as a class! After creating a list as a class, students can either create their own list OR they can simply glue in a similar list into their writer's notebooks or folders! This is another important mini-lesson! It really allows your little writers to think about WHY writers write and why they should write! I love using the book Author A True Story by Helen Lester because it is a story from an author's point of view and allows writers to hear why an actual author chose to write! In my experience, sometimes writers have a difficult time determining WHY they write and might need some guidance to brainstorm ideas for the anchor chart! This particular mini-lesson sets up your expectations for HOW students behave during Writer's Workshop. Using the book Ralph Tells a Story, you can show students what not to do during writing time. This really allows them to brainstorm ideas of what they should be doing during writing! I always teach this lesson right after the {What Good Writers Do} lesson because it always focuses on writing behaviors. For this particular lesson, I reference back to Ralph Tells a Story to help my writers determine what writing should look like, sound like, and feel like in our classroom! For this mini-lesson, I always ask my writers what our classroom would look like, sound like, and feel like if one of our administrators walked into our classroom during writing time. Depending on your class and group of writers, you could complete this in one lesson or split it up into three different lessons! This particular mini-lesson discusses the tools that writers need in order to write. I'm going to be honest, if I'm struggling with time this is probably the first lesson that I would cut out because you could also discuss it in the What Good Writers Do mini-lesson. But, this is a good lesson to go over all the tools that your students can use in your classroom and your expectations for using them. Writing journals or folders? Pencils, erasers, pens for editing? Extra graphic organizers, writing pages? Writing prompts? Word wall or personal dictionaries? There are TONS of writing tools for the writers in your classroom! It's really important to talk about your expectations and even discuss with your writers how they should set up their writing journal or folder! It's common for little writers to not able to keep their belongings organized, so this is a great lesson to really focus on that! Using the book The Day the Crayons Quit is a fun book to use for this lesson because you talk about what would happen if you didn't have access to certain writing tools! "Mrs. Dills, I'm done!" If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that statement, I would probably own my own island! I don't know what it is, but at the beginnin writers always think they are completely finished as soon as they finish with one writing piece! This anchor chart stays up in my classroom for a very long time and I reference it A LOT! This book is a great story to read for this mini-lesson because they are SUPER short stories and allows you to discuss how writers could add lots of details to complete their story!. Then, you could discuss what else writers could do when they think they are done! Because of course, they've really just begun! In my first and second grade classroom, it was very common for my writers to freeze when they couldn't spell a word correctly- especially at the beginning of the year! Some would ask how to spell the word and some would just sit there and not write anything else! This mini-lesson really focuses on stretching out their words the best that they can instead of focusing on spelling the word perfectly. For this mini-lesson, I don't read a mentor text but instead I really focus on modeling how to stretch out words by listening for each sound and then writing them down. I go over each step with the students and then model writing my own story using this strategy. There are times that my writers still have a difficult time stretching out words for their writing, so during this lesson I also give them a personal dictionary. I didn't have a word wall in my classroom, but instead each of my students received a personal dictionary to keep in their desks. I like printing this 2 pages to a sheet and allowing them to keep it in a pocket in the back of their writing journals or folder! And FINALLY, it's time to really dig into story writing! I absolutely LOVE hearing from my little story tellers and I really look forward to teaching them HOW to write a story! This can definitely be broken into multiple days if you want to focus on modeling each step! However, it can easily be taught in one lesson! A Squiggly Story is such a fun little book about a little boy that is learning how to express himself, just like your writers as they learn how to write a story! This is another important anchor chart that I refer back to a lot during my writing instruction. A lot of times writers want to skip right to the writing part, but it's important for them to realize that there is a process! This is a great introductory lesson to the writing process for your little learners! I model this a lot in my classroom! This lesson really focuses on allowing students to come up with their own ideas for writing. I teach this after the {How to Write a Story} lesson because then I can really focus in on the first point, which is thinking of an idea! I like to reference the book Ralph Tells a Story again because the character in that book really struggled with thinking of an idea to write. The character in The Best Story has a similar problem, but she figures out that she should write from her heart! After reading the book, we talk about what is in our heart. Then, we talk about maps and their purpose. It would be really great to show students a picture of an actual map during this lesson! Then, I begin creating my own heart map and have students create their heart maps to keep in their writing journals to use throughout the year! Oh my goodness! I always, always, always have writers that get stuck or frozen and just don't know what to do! Stuck is the cutest book about a little boy whose kite gets stuck in a tree and he is determined to get it out! For this mini-lesson, I really like having my students brainstorm ideas for what they can do when they get stuck during writing time! So the anchor chart will look different each year because it really depends on the ideas that the group comes up with! Then, during independent writing time my students get to practice using those ideas if they get stuck! This might be one of my FAVORITE writing mini-lessons, which is crazy because not a lot of writing actually takes place! This mini-lesson shows the importance of illustrations and having them match your words! All of these book options are great because they have very little or no words at all, and students have to look at each illustration to tell the story. For this particular mini-lesson, I did not create an actual anchor chart with the students. Instead, I drew a simple picture and had students tell me what was happening in MY story! Then, my writers had to do the same thing! I had their return to their desks and they drew a detailed illustration. Afterwards, in pairs, students had to look at each other's illustrations and try to explain what was happening just from their drawings. This really helped them see the importance of their illustrations! To introduce the Writing Process, I like reading the book Rocket Writes a Story and discussing each part with my writers. Of course, this is truly just an introduction and students will not go through the entire writing process in one lesson! However, it is good that they have an understanding of each component and are aware of the process as they begin their writing units! I allow my writers to glue this mini-anchor chart into their writing notebooks so they always have a visual reminder of the writing process even if it is not currently displayed in our classroom! After students have an understanding of the writing process, we spend more time on how writers can fix or "fancy" their writing using the book Fancy Nancy! Although we go over editing and revising in a mini-lesson, this is definitely not the last time that my writers are introduced to this concept. I model editing and revising throughout the entire year and they have A LOT of practice working independently, with writing partners, and during writing conferences! For these lesson ideas in one easy FREE document, click here or the images below! For the mini-anchor charts click here or the picture below! For the personal dictionary click here or the picture below! For the FREE writing notebook cover and dividers, get the password to my Resource Library here! Or click on the image below to get the password emailed to you! Send it my way! Powered By ConvertKit For all of the subject covers click here or the image below! For the books click here or the image below for my Amazon Affiliate storefront! How do YOU launch Writer's Workshop in your classroom!? I hope this post gave you some ideas for your classroom! If you want to save these ideas for later, make sure to pin the image below!
Lucy and I have a love-hate relationship. Lucy Caulkins that is. While I adore her theory and many of her ideas for structuring Writers Workshop, I often
Check out Narrative Writing Prompts & Worksheets for kindergarten-4th grade! There is a variety of prompts & worksheets to use in your room!
The first few weeks of school are all about setting the foundation. We're establishing routines and procedures, encouraging a growth mindset culture, building classroom community, etc. I also like to spend some time laying the foundation for what students will need to be successful writers throughout the year, especially since writing is a focus that threads through all subject areas. In second grade especially, sentence structure is a great place to start. We review the 4 parts that every sentence has to have in order to be a complete sentence:
How to writing is one of my favorite writing units to teach. My students just get it and they enjoy writing many, many pieces! Maybe it’s because my students think they know how to do everyyyytthiinngggg. 😉 If your students are like mine, let them run with the idea that they know it ALL and have […]
Love podcasts? Check out this post in the form of a podcast episode on The Classroom Commute Podcast :
Teacher Truth- I used to despise teaching Writer's Workshop. I understood the structure of the workshop model and the focus of each grading period, however, I didn't really know WHAT to teach each day during my mini-lessons. Fast forward a couple of years, and I had an amazing opportunity to visit an amazing teacher's classroom and observe her in action and I fell in love with her writing instruction! And then the next year, my amazing team and I decided to each tackle one subject and share our plans. I chose writing (even though it still wasn't my favorite) so I could spend more time learning about teaching writing and *hopefully* fall in love. It worked! Now that I LOVE writing, I wanted to share what I currently do to launch Writer's Workshop! I've taken pieces from what I love from different resources to make what works for me and my students. This post is a little peek into my mini-lessons, anchor charts, and mentor texts that I love! I posted them in the order that I usually teach each lesson, however you can change them around to make it work for you and your group of writers! For each lesson I shared an example of an anchor chart! In my classroom, I always prepped the anchor charts with the title and an image first, but added the content WITH my students during the mini-lesson! The books that I have posted are linked to my Amazon affiliate store. If you purchase them through the link, I will receive a small commission! This might just be one of the most important lessons to launch Writer's Workshop because it explains exactly what it is and what students can expect from their teacher and their own expectations. This is always the very first lesson that I teach when beginning Writer's Workshop and I love using the pie chart as a great visual! I begin this mini lesson using the book Arthur Writes a Story to get my little writers thinking about writing! After we complete the large anchor chart together, my students completed their own mini-anchor chart to glue in their writer's notebooks! I love using these mini-anchor charts because my students can reference them at anytime, even if the large anchor chart is not visible in our classroom anymore! After this lesson, I continue to follow this model for our writing instruction each and everyday! The independent writing time is always the most important and longest part of our writing time! For the next mini-lesson, we discuss WHAT writers actually write! Some groups do a great job at brainstorming different types of writing, while others need a little push! This would be a great mini-lesson to bring out different types of writing to show your little writers! Think cookbooks, Christmas cards, printed e-mails, grocery lists, newspapers, magazines, etc. You can put all these items in a basket to have your writers explore independently, or pull them out while you are making your list as a class! After creating a list as a class, students can either create their own list OR they can simply glue in a similar list into their writer's notebooks or folders! This is another important mini-lesson! It really allows your little writers to think about WHY writers write and why they should write! I love using the book Author A True Story by Helen Lester because it is a story from an author's point of view and allows writers to hear why an actual author chose to write! In my experience, sometimes writers have a difficult time determining WHY they write and might need some guidance to brainstorm ideas for the anchor chart! This particular mini-lesson sets up your expectations for HOW students behave during Writer's Workshop. Using the book Ralph Tells a Story, you can show students what not to do during writing time. This really allows them to brainstorm ideas of what they should be doing during writing! I always teach this lesson right after the {What Good Writers Do} lesson because it always focuses on writing behaviors. For this particular lesson, I reference back to Ralph Tells a Story to help my writers determine what writing should look like, sound like, and feel like in our classroom! For this mini-lesson, I always ask my writers what our classroom would look like, sound like, and feel like if one of our administrators walked into our classroom during writing time. Depending on your class and group of writers, you could complete this in one lesson or split it up into three different lessons! This particular mini-lesson discusses the tools that writers need in order to write. I'm going to be honest, if I'm struggling with time this is probably the first lesson that I would cut out because you could also discuss it in the What Good Writers Do mini-lesson. But, this is a good lesson to go over all the tools that your students can use in your classroom and your expectations for using them. Writing journals or folders? Pencils, erasers, pens for editing? Extra graphic organizers, writing pages? Writing prompts? Word wall or personal dictionaries? There are TONS of writing tools for the writers in your classroom! It's really important to talk about your expectations and even discuss with your writers how they should set up their writing journal or folder! It's common for little writers to not able to keep their belongings organized, so this is a great lesson to really focus on that! Using the book The Day the Crayons Quit is a fun book to use for this lesson because you talk about what would happen if you didn't have access to certain writing tools! "Mrs. Dills, I'm done!" If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that statement, I would probably own my own island! I don't know what it is, but at the beginnin writers always think they are completely finished as soon as they finish with one writing piece! This anchor chart stays up in my classroom for a very long time and I reference it A LOT! This book is a great story to read for this mini-lesson because they are SUPER short stories and allows you to discuss how writers could add lots of details to complete their story!. Then, you could discuss what else writers could do when they think they are done! Because of course, they've really just begun! In my first and second grade classroom, it was very common for my writers to freeze when they couldn't spell a word correctly- especially at the beginning of the year! Some would ask how to spell the word and some would just sit there and not write anything else! This mini-lesson really focuses on stretching out their words the best that they can instead of focusing on spelling the word perfectly. For this mini-lesson, I don't read a mentor text but instead I really focus on modeling how to stretch out words by listening for each sound and then writing them down. I go over each step with the students and then model writing my own story using this strategy. There are times that my writers still have a difficult time stretching out words for their writing, so during this lesson I also give them a personal dictionary. I didn't have a word wall in my classroom, but instead each of my students received a personal dictionary to keep in their desks. I like printing this 2 pages to a sheet and allowing them to keep it in a pocket in the back of their writing journals or folder! And FINALLY, it's time to really dig into story writing! I absolutely LOVE hearing from my little story tellers and I really look forward to teaching them HOW to write a story! This can definitely be broken into multiple days if you want to focus on modeling each step! However, it can easily be taught in one lesson! A Squiggly Story is such a fun little book about a little boy that is learning how to express himself, just like your writers as they learn how to write a story! This is another important anchor chart that I refer back to a lot during my writing instruction. A lot of times writers want to skip right to the writing part, but it's important for them to realize that there is a process! This is a great introductory lesson to the writing process for your little learners! I model this a lot in my classroom! This lesson really focuses on allowing students to come up with their own ideas for writing. I teach this after the {How to Write a Story} lesson because then I can really focus in on the first point, which is thinking of an idea! I like to reference the book Ralph Tells a Story again because the character in that book really struggled with thinking of an idea to write. The character in The Best Story has a similar problem, but she figures out that she should write from her heart! After reading the book, we talk about what is in our heart. Then, we talk about maps and their purpose. It would be really great to show students a picture of an actual map during this lesson! Then, I begin creating my own heart map and have students create their heart maps to keep in their writing journals to use throughout the year! Oh my goodness! I always, always, always have writers that get stuck or frozen and just don't know what to do! Stuck is the cutest book about a little boy whose kite gets stuck in a tree and he is determined to get it out! For this mini-lesson, I really like having my students brainstorm ideas for what they can do when they get stuck during writing time! So the anchor chart will look different each year because it really depends on the ideas that the group comes up with! Then, during independent writing time my students get to practice using those ideas if they get stuck! This might be one of my FAVORITE writing mini-lessons, which is crazy because not a lot of writing actually takes place! This mini-lesson shows the importance of illustrations and having them match your words! All of these book options are great because they have very little or no words at all, and students have to look at each illustration to tell the story. For this particular mini-lesson, I did not create an actual anchor chart with the students. Instead, I drew a simple picture and had students tell me what was happening in MY story! Then, my writers had to do the same thing! I had their return to their desks and they drew a detailed illustration. Afterwards, in pairs, students had to look at each other's illustrations and try to explain what was happening just from their drawings. This really helped them see the importance of their illustrations! To introduce the Writing Process, I like reading the book Rocket Writes a Story and discussing each part with my writers. Of course, this is truly just an introduction and students will not go through the entire writing process in one lesson! However, it is good that they have an understanding of each component and are aware of the process as they begin their writing units! I allow my writers to glue this mini-anchor chart into their writing notebooks so they always have a visual reminder of the writing process even if it is not currently displayed in our classroom! After students have an understanding of the writing process, we spend more time on how writers can fix or "fancy" their writing using the book Fancy Nancy! Although we go over editing and revising in a mini-lesson, this is definitely not the last time that my writers are introduced to this concept. I model editing and revising throughout the entire year and they have A LOT of practice working independently, with writing partners, and during writing conferences! For these lesson ideas in one easy FREE document, click here or the images below! For the mini-anchor charts click here or the picture below! For the personal dictionary click here or the picture below! For the FREE writing notebook cover and dividers, get the password to my Resource Library here! Or click on the image below to get the password emailed to you! Send it my way! Powered By ConvertKit For all of the subject covers click here or the image below! For the books click here or the image below for my Amazon Affiliate storefront! How do YOU launch Writer's Workshop in your classroom!? I hope this post gave you some ideas for your classroom! If you want to save these ideas for later, make sure to pin the image below!
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Launching writing workshop or even just setting up your writing block can feel overwhelming, but with the help of these anchor charts, you’ll feel confident and prepared to set your students up for writing success this year. These writing workshop anchor charts and posters are perfect for back to school and will help your students remember all the important writing habits and behaviors they should practice this year. This set of anchor charts will be your teacher bestie when it comes to launching writing workshop and setting up your writing block. These posters describe and explain key writing habits and behaviors you want your students to embrace. From building the writing process, to collecting ideas, to independent writing to peer review, these anchor charts will help you teach all these key back-to-school writing lessons. With the help of these posters, students will understand exactly what they need to do to become successful writers in your class this year. And let’s be honest… back to school can be a stressful and busy season for teachers. Having this set of ready-to-print anchor charts will take the guesswork out of your first few weeks of writing lessons. You’ll be able to print out the anchor chart you need for your lesson each day and will be set for the first three weeks of school! HERE’S WHAT YOU GET: In this resource, you’ll get 20 anchor charts to help you launch writing workshop. The posters are formatted in the following ways: Half-page anchor charts - perfect for students journals Full page anchor charts - works great for whole group lessons Digital version - created using Google Slides FIll-in version - available for both the half-page and full-page versions and are great if you want your students to take notes during the lesson LOVED BY BOTH TEACHERS AND STUDENTS: Your students will love having access to these anchor charts during the year. They won’t feel the pressure to remember all the different parts of the writing workshop because they know they can look back in their journals anytime they need a reminder. You’ll love these anchor charts because they have easy-to-read font and are written with clear and concise language. Your students will understand the objective of each lesson with these anchor charts. So many upper elementary teachers love these anchor charts because they aren’t cluttered with excess clipart or fonts that are too “cutesy”. And, you have options. You can choose to print them in half pages for students to glue in their journals… or you can share them with your students in Google Classroom… or you can give students the fill-in version so they can take notes during your lessons. You can pick the version that will work for you and your students. Prep is quick and easy... Just print the anchor chart option you want to use before your writing lesson and you’re ready to go. ANCHOR CHART TITLES INCLUDE: All About Writer's Workshop Collecting Ideas Conferring Habits of a Strong Writer Independent Writing Looks Like/Sounds Like Peer Review Revise vs. Edit Sharing Our Writing Show Not Tell Story Telling Strong Listeners Student and Teacher Roles During Writing Workshop Think I'm Done, Now What? Using Mentor Texts What do Writers Writer? Why Writers Write Writer's Notebook Writing For Your Audience Writing Process HOW TO USE THESE CHARTS IN YOUR CLASSROOM: Use them at the start of the school year to help launch Writing Workshop. Use them throughout the year to review key writing habits and behaviors. Use as a model for your whole group lessons. Give students a copy to glue in their journals. Send home a copy to parents to keep them informed. Include a copy with your lesson plans to show your administrators what you’re teaching. Put posters on a ring or in a binder as a reference for small groups or workstations. TEACHERS LIKE YOU SAID: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “My students loved using these as a resource during our writers workshop. They helped students stay focused on the lesson.” - Sarah H. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "This was a very helpful resource in distance learning, but I also think it is going to be equally as helpful in-person. These are helpful to have on hand digitally and can easily be printed out. Thank you for a wonderful, helpful way to make learning more accessible in these trying times. :)” - Jaclyn Parolin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Writers' Workshop is a great method of laying out your writing, and these posters really supported a clear structure to the system. Thank you!” - Jeanine F. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “These writing workshop anchor charts provided so much visual support to my 2nd graders! I was so thankful to have purchased such a resource that I have and will refer to throughout the year!” - Haley W. _______________________________________ ⭐️ BUNDLE & SAVE FOR A DISCOUNT⭐️ Purchase the Reading & Writing Workshop Bundle to get this set of posters plus 30 Reading Workshop Anchor Charts to help you launch both reading and writing workshops. I THINK YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: → Writing Tools and Resource Bundle → Show Not Tell Mini Charts → 20 Writing Graphic Organizers ________________________________ Copyright © The Stellar Teacher Co. LLC www.stellarteacher.com Permission to copy for single classroom use only. Please purchase additional licenses if you intend to share this product.
Writing is one of my favorite times during the day! In these first few weeks of school, my students have blown me away with their creativity in their writing. It excites me for what is to come this year! The best thing about being part of the College of Education was you got to pretend you were a kid again. We participated in several lessons that were applicable to our classrooms. In a writing course, my junior year, my professor led us on a Writing Marathon. Our mission was to roam campus for an hour and find different locations to write. He sent us on our way and told us to return in 60 minutes! In my Writer's Notebook, I wrote down my sights around Brady Commons, the Columns, and the steps of the College of Ed. Thinking back on that day, I remember having a great time with friends and writing ..writing... and more writing. I decided to test this strategy out with my kiddos this year. My school utilizies the 6+1 Writing Traits program and our first trait is "Ideas". We have been working on gathering ideas and zooooooooming in on one idea. After specials, I told my kids to grab their Writer's Notebooks because we were taking a little marathon. Their goal: use their 5 senses and observe the area they are in. Minimum of 4 sentences per location! We hit up the following spots in school: Classroom Front lawn Cafeteria Library Playground I had the best time reading through their entries. Several cracked jokes and expressed hunger throughout the process! Besides getting to move around the school, my students practiced generating ideas and focusing in on one idea at a time. I don't know about you but I love anchor charts. It's a great time for the class to get together and collaborate ideas. I believe that charts created together are more powerful than pre-made ones. Yes, I have store bought posters on my wall... but I also have ones we made. It's a nice mixture! You can take the girl out of second grade... but you can't take the anchor chart out of the girl! That's the saying, right? Anywho, here are a few fun anchor charts from around the web. Click the captain for the source! The First Grade Parade First Grade Parade Mrs. Williams Kinders I need to stop this late night blogging. What has gotten into me!? It's bedtime. But first, I'm obsessed with this performance from the VMA's. Enjoy! 2011 VMA - Music - Beyoncé
Today was Presidents Day. Unlike some lucky teachers who got to stay home, I had to go to work today. We had a full day of workshops. On top of that, we ended up getting 5+ inches of snow this morning. It started in the morning and it fell hard and fast! My first part of the morning was spent learning how to do my web page. I loved that we were walked through...step by step...how to set up our pages. We then had to go our home school to work with our PLC's on goals that we set. I am excited that I will be doing Reader's Theater with my group. I found these fun plays from Kristin at A Teeny Tiny Teacher. I am so excited to use them. After lunch, we spent the rest of the day at another school in our district. We listened to Steve Dunn talk about writing. My head is spinning with all the great ideas that he gave us. I loved that he gave us examples and ideas of how to teach writing in our classroom. I can't wait to go back to my classroom and try some of the things that he shared with us. The afternoon went by so fast! Tonight I created some different writing papers that I want to use during Writer's Workshop based off the ideas that he gave us. This paper is meant to be used for kindergartners who are in their beginning stages of writing. They will draw a picture in the box and then write their sentences below it. This paper is meant to be used for kindergartners in January and first graders throughout the school year. The page on the left side of their journal will have the box on it. That way when they are done writing, they can go to the next page and still see their picture. Finally, this paper is meant for first graders and higher. Students will draw pictures of what happens in the beginning, middle and end of their stories. The boxes are on the left side of their journal and the extra lines are on the right side so they can still see the pictures. You can find all these papers HERE. I hope you find them helpful to you. I hope you had a great day! Sara
Writing resources for supporting K-2 students with revising and editing - writing rubrics, writing checklists, revising and editing posters, revising and editing strategy cards, mentor texts, materials for making an editing flip book, and more! ------Do your students struggle to make significant changes to their writing? Is it hard for them to see errors in their drafts once they've finished?Use these resources to support and motivate even your reluctant writers in revising and editing their writing!The "I can" revising and editing posters will be a great visual addition to your minilessons. The kid-friendly mentor texts will give you relevant samples to use to model revision and editing.Your students will get the support they need from the strategy cards, rubrics and checklists, and an interactive editing flip book!The Revising and Editing Table materials will help you set up a place in your classroom where students work together to revise and edit their work - without needing your direct supervision.Not only will this toolkit help your students revise and edit independently, but the materials will also help you cut down on your planning time!These resources can be used to supplement any writing program, including my K-2 writing workshop units. Here's a detailed description of what's included:Revising and Editing Posters:136 different “I Can” statement posters for various revising and editing skills. You can use these posters as the basis for minilessons, to display your daily learning objectives, and/or to create a revising and editing bulletin board in your classroom.Revising and Editing Strategy Cards:136 “I Can” statement strategy cards for various revising and editing skills. These strategies match the posters described above and can be used to have students create personal strategy rings to use as they write independently.Rubrics and Checklists:Over 50 rubrics and checklists appropriate for K-2 students, in the narrative, persuasive, and expository genres + written responses to texts.Mentor Texts for Revising and Editing:27 different K-2 appropriate mentor texts (sample writing pieces) that you can use to teach students how to revise and edit. These mentor texts are included in different formats - each one is provided with and without different types of mistakes that you can teach students to correct. Included are narratives (personal narratives and fiction), informational writing (all about books and how-to writing), opinion writing (opinion pieces and persuasive letters), and reader responses to text.COPS Editing Flip Book Materials:Instructions and printables you can use to have students make an interactive editing flip book.Conventions Cards:Instructions and printables you can use to recognize students for using good editing skills.Revising and Editing Table Materials:Instructions for setting up a Revising and Editing table in your classroom, printables for supporting students in using the table, and complete lesson plans (4) for teaching students how to use the table.
