Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Reading and Writing Workshop Resources

Yesterday was the first part of the class that I am teaching on reading and writing workshop this week. I will post more on that later, but for now, I wanted to share the list of resources that I will be emailing to the teachers attending the class. They are some of my favorite resources related to literacy and workshop teaching (or that align with workshop teaching if not directly marketed as workshop resources).

There are so many valuable resources available, and more created all of the time, so this will in no way be a comprehensive list. I mentioned to the group and will reiterate tomorrow that with workshop teaching (and literacy teaching in general) that building capacity is an on-going process. I shared my journey of first reading and exploring as much as I could about workshop teaching and then moving into on-going areas that I wanted to understand more, such as writer's notebooks and conferring. The intent of this list is to have ideas for future areas of support since they will not be able to familiarize themselves with all resources at once.

The grade levels are where resources most naturally fits, but I have learned a lot from resources not targeted at my age group. If I have already talked about a listed resource on my blog, then I linked it here. I will be talking about the resources in our face-to-face meeting.

Primary Grades
Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum (from Heinemann)
Catching Readers Before They Fall, as well as the blog by the same name
A Place for Wonder
***I have not had a chance to read any of Katie Wood Ray's books, but I frequently hear her referenced when hearing about primary workshop teaching. I bet all of her resources are great.

Upper Grades
Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5 (from Heinemann)
When Writing Workshop Isn't Working
Intermediate CAFE in the Classroom DVD

Middle School




Nancie Atwell resources:
In the Middle (from Heinemann)
 The Reading Zone
Lessons that Change Writers
Reading in the Middle 
Writing in the Middle

Multi-Grade Resources


The Common Core Reading & Writing Workshop Series
This new series created by Lucy Calkins and others at Columbia University's Teacher College Reading and Writing Project has an individual eDoc for kindergarten through 8th grade in reading and writing that is aligned to the new Common Core Standards. 

Day by Day *This book is an excellent resource for writing workshop once you already have a foundation and are looking to reflect and continually grow. The authors, Stacey Shubitz and Ruth Ayres created the Two Writing Teachers blog noted below, as well as Ayres' blog focusing on writing. I will be watching for Ayres' forthcoming book Celebrating Writers that will come out in 2012 from Stenhouse.


Fountas and Pinnell resources:
The Fountas & Pinnell Prompting Guide (and the Spanish version)
The Continuum of Literacy Learning Grades PreK-8 (and the PreK-2 Spanish version)


Aimee Buckner Resources:
Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook
Notebook Connections: Strategies for the Reader's Notebook


Jeff Anderson Resources:
Mechanically Inclined
Everyday Editing


"The Sisters" Resources:
The Daily Five
The CAFE Book

Resources to Focus on Yourself as a Writer (as well as a Teacher of Writing)
Two Writing Teachers blog
Ruth Ayres Writes blog
The Stenhouse Blog
Laurie Halse Anderson's blog (as well as other author sites and blogs)
The Essential Don Murray: Lessons from America's Greatest Writing Teacher (from Heinemann)
On Writing by Stephen King


Penny Kittle resources:
Write Beside Them
Public Teaching One Kid at a Time and The Greatest Catch

What are some of your favorite literacy or workshop resources? Please comment to share some of your favorites.

2 comments:

  1. I think you about covered my resources. Here I am in my fourth year of teaching, and I've just now started to delve into the writing workshop idea. It is daunting! I am slowly coming to terms with "letting go" of prompt-type writing and focusing more on the genre itself. I wish I could get my hands on an actual student's journal, though. I am such a visual learner and have a hard time seeing the bigger (i.e. school-year-long) picture without this reference. How I wish I could come to your class! How about a podcast??? :)

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  2. Ashlee,

    I will have to keep the potential for podcasts in mind. I will be posting some reflections on the class next week.

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