Have you wanted to start Writer’s Workshop but didn’t know where or how to start? Well, hopefully in this post you get some new ideas and feel alittle more at ease with teaching writing. You won’t believe this, but writing is my favorite subject to teach my first graders, so you’re in luck!
For this reason, I could teach writing ALL DAY LONG! However, I know some teachers absolutely hate to teach writing, but I’m here to hopefully help you get a different opinion on writing! My students LOVE to write stories during writer’s workshop. Why? Because they get to choose their topic and genre to publish their very own story!
What is the Gradual Release of Responsibility?
My Writer’s Workshop is divided up into three parts: the I Do, We Do, and You Do. This is a framework that starts with teacher lead instruction, which gradually leads to teacher/student collaboration, which then leads to student’s writing independently. However, this cannot be done all in one day, but needs to be strategically planned throughout the week. For example Monday and Tuesday is the “I Do and You Do” and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is the “I Do and We Do”.
My Writing Block:
Since my writing block is usually between 30-45 minutes every day, my students are able to work on their published piece that they want. In my opinion, it’s extremely important to have your students write every day. If you cannot have them write during your writing block, then have them write in other subjects such as science, social studies or math. Yes- math! You can have them write story problems!
Here’s the break down of my writing block:
I Do (mini-lesson) 5-10 minutes
We Do (turn and talk-interactive writing) 5-10 minutes
You Do (independent writing, conferencing) 30-45 minutes
Author’s Chair- 5 min.
You’re probably thinking…how can I get all of this in 30-45 minutes? Well, you can alternate the I Do and We Do…that’s what I do with my class. I teach one skill ALL WEEK LONG. The first day is a mentor text, the second day is vocabulary cards and anchor charts, the third day is interactive writing, the fourth day is review turn and tell and the fifth day is a review with an interactive notebook…you can do this in any order that you want! It’s so flexible and that’s why I love it so much!
Lesson Plan Examples:
If you’re interested in checking out how I teach a mini-lesson, check out my YouTube Channel called Create Your Balance with Literacy. I have a video of how I teach prepositions using the book Rosie’s Walk. Now, this video is a little long, because I squeezed in two days into one sitting for this video. But when you teach a mini-lesson, you will want to divide this mini-lesson up into two separate days so it’s not so long. Think of it this way- your mini-lesson should be shorter than your student’s independent writing time.
Anchor Charts:
All of my anchor charts are interactive. I premake them ahead of time with the borders, titles, and pictures, but the meat of the lesson is down with my students. You can see here that this student is using Post-It Notes to “post” her words on the anchor chart during my mini-lesson. This way, my students still feel like they were included in the making of the chart. Then, I take a picture of the anchor chart to shrink down to glue into their “Schema Notebook”.
I know that a lot of teachers prefer to make their anchor charts with the class but let’s face it… sometimes we don’t have the time to make the anchor chart in front of the class! If you have the time…do it! You do you!
Interactive Notebook:
During the first week of school we brainstorm things that we can write about and my students cut out the anchor chart and glue it into their schema notebook (reader’s and writer’s notebook). One side is the teacher side for anchor charts and the other side is for them. Here is an example of the “We Do” part of the block.
You can shrink down your anchor charts to about 80% so they will fit inside of the composition notebook. If you don’t have room on your walls to display your anchor charts, this is a brilliant way for the students to keep the anchor charts handy as a resource.
Vocabulary cards are perfect for parts of speech, grammar, and the process of writing. These are helpful for the students to see them in the writing center after the skills are taught. I also use them with my poetry center as well. Here is a picture of my poetry center with the vocab cards around the poem.
If you’re interested in my writer’s workshop vocabulary cards, click here. If you’re interested in watching me teach my focus poetry as a shared reading, watch here. I use focus poetry as a recursive review of punctuation and grammar that I’ve taught during Writer’s Workshop.
Parts of Speech Cards
Shared Reading/Writing:
Another example is during the “We Do” portion of the mini-lesson, I call on students to come up to the pocket chart to read sentences, while the rest of the class has their interactive notebook page in their lap with their clipboard and pencil. They are copying what the student is writing or reading from the anchor chart or pocket chart.
The “You Do” portion of the writer’s workshop, is where the process of writing takes place. My students use a poster with Popsicle sticks that they move down to show which step they are on. This helps them and I keep track of their progress.
Here is my poster. The kids LOVE it! When I pull this poster out, they all clap and cheer for writing!!! You have to tell your students that they are authors now and it may take them several weeks to publish their books because they have to go through all of these steps. You also need to refer to real authors and their process of getting a book published. Then they will understand. If you’re interested in checking out a video of what my writer’s workshop time looks like and sounds like, click check out my YouTube Channel.
Process Writing Steps:
Next, the writing process using these steps are as follows: Brainstorming, First Draft, Student Conference, Proofreading, Teacher Conference, Editing and Revision, Final Draft, and Publishing. If you’re interested in watching how I take the status of the class, check out my YouTube Channel. My students tell me which step of the writing process they are on as I hand them their folders:
After taking the status of the class, my students know that they can raise their hand at any time for me to spell a word in their dictionary. We make these dictionaries at the beginning of the year. If you are interested in checking out my dictionaries for the writer’s workshop, click here They keep their dictionaries in their writer’s workshop folder.
Dictionary:
Each student has a genre chart that gets put into their writer’s workshop folder. This is where we color in the genres that my students can write. And…they cannot write the same genre twice. They have to write as many as they can! Here is the template that I made:
Writing Folder:
We organize our folders with one side being a work in progress and the other side the finished product. You could also use colored stickers on each pocket: red for finished pieces, and green for works in progress. For all the templates that the students do for each step, I stamp them with the date and staple them together. If you’re interested in a video of how I organize my writing folders, check out my YouTube Channel!
Organizing Templates:
Meanwhile, my students also know where they can get all of their papers for each step. I organize them inside a Banker’s Box that I bought at Office Depot. This is one of the best purchases that I’ve ever done! If you’re interested in checking out a video of how I organize all of my writer’s workshop papers, check out my YouTube Channel!
My students also take part in teacher and student conferences. They know to sit at my small conferencing table and whisper during their conference so as to not disturb the other students who are writing.
At the beginning of the year, you must MODEL, MODEL, and MODEL how to do a student conference successfully, because this will set the stage for the whole year.
This is where they read their stories to each other and circle 8 misspelled words and check off their student conference checklist. If you’re interested in checking out a video of my student conferences, check out my YouTube Channel!
During the final draft, the students are illustrating, writing, outlining, and perfecting their story getting ready to publish. I have different templates with pretty borders for them to choose from. This is their favorite part of writer’s workshop! They write one sentence on each page, but depending on how long their story is, they can write more than one. Aren’t they beautiful???
After illustrating their cover page, title page, dedication page, and author’s bio, then we get to staple it all together!
Publishing!
If you’re interested in checking out a video of my author’s chair, check out my YouTube Channel!
When the story comes back to school the next day, then we display them on our publishing wall! The students each have their own pocket that stays on the wall and when the new book goes up, the old one comes down to take home for good. Here is my publishing wall:
If you are interested in checking out my writer’s workshop resources, check out my TPT store and click here. It includes my lesson plans for the whole year, anchor charts, mentor texts, vocabulary cards, interactive notebooks, photos, and writing templates. This resource can be adapted for grades K-3.
Lastly, I’ve written FREE lesson plans on how to launch Writer’s Workshop from day 1- they include objectives, suggested mentor texts, anchor charts, and how to use the “I Do, We Do and You Do” of the gradual release of responsibility. Here are the 5 days of lessons:
Day 1: Write From Your Heart
Day 2: What Does Writing Time Look Like?
Day 3: What is a Dictionary?
Day 4: What is an Author and Illustrator?
Day 5: Creating My First Mental Image for My Story
Click here to sign up on my email list to get your FREE lesson plans and FREE writing resources to start your writer’s workshop block off right!
Here is a video of how my student’s writing transforms from the beginning of the year to the end of the year!
I hope you got some great ideas about how to start Writer’s Workshop in your classroom!
Let’s take your classroom to the next level!
Happy Teaching!
P.S.) If you’re interested in checking out how I implement a Fairy Tale writing unit and use the writing process, click here.
