Writers Workshop Procedure Guidelines Second Grade Reed School
Author’s Chair: (10 minutes) Daily, two students come to the Author’s Chair. During this time the author must first state his/her purpose and what is wanted from peers. The authors may choose to share a completed piece, a work in progress, or gather new ideas for new pieces. Sometimes the request is simply for a compliment for work well done! Writers Workshop begins with Author’s chair to stimulate ideas and get things started.
Mini-lesson: (15 minutes) After Author’s Chair, students participate in a teacher directed mini-lesson focused on a specific writing convention such as: sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.
Writing Time: (25 minutes) This is independent writing time where kids build their writing stamina. Students may be writing stories, letters, journal entries, non-fiction, and fiction. Writing time will fluctuate between student-selected writing activities and teacher-directed activities.
Conferences: (conducted during writing time) Students participate in teacher-led writing conferences. During student collaboration, students begin to work together with their peers to revise and edit their work. During teacher-led conferences the teacher targets no more than one or two specific areas based on the child’s individual skills.
Other Terms
Craft Lessons: (30-45 minutes) This is an interactive lesson that focuses on a specific writing strategy that good writers use, such as: point of view, using effective dialogue, developing organization, etc. These lessons are separate from Writer's Workshop. Students practice the specific strategy through writing short passages.
Basic steps:
*Introduce strategy to be practiced
*Model the strategy using an example of teacher writing or literature
*Give students time to try it on their own
*Have volunteers share their passages with the whole class. Highlight effective examples and coach students who still haven’t mastered strategy.
Writing Process: Students are not expected to use the complete writing process for all pieces. Following the scope and sequence students will use the complete writing process three times throughout the year. We define the writing process as:
*Selecting specific genre
*Brainstorming
*Completing a story organizer/map
*Composing a rough draft
*Revising and editing as needed
*Creating a final copy for publication
Revision: This is the complete change of words, ideas or organization of a story. This can be very challenging for students if they have already composed an entire story. It is a good idea to practice revision orally during the brainstorming of a story. It is also “built into” the instructional steps of a craft lesson.
Editing: Editing refers to “fixing” the mechanics within text. This includes spelling, punctuation, tense, grammar, capitalization, and sentence structure.