When I was preparing the resources that I would have available for the second day that was set aside for collaborating and planning, I was unsure of how many to include. I did not want to overwhelm teachers by having too many, yet I also wanted to have whatever was most helpful at the time. I observed during that day and noticed that not surprisingly, there was not one or two resources that everyone wanted. Instead, different teachers were drawn to different resources as their initial starting points, making me realize that I was glad I had various options available.
For writing workshop the Calkins and Atwell curriculum was a definite given as being highly useful for teachers. The Daily Five, The CAFE Book, Aimee Buckner resources, Conferring, and The Continuum of Literacy Learning were also among the top choices.
In combination with the resources I was also available to answer questions. It was ideal that the training was at my school because I was able to pull up documents that I used with my students to share as examples. Teachers were able to move flexibly around the room with different resources or to lean in on others' conversations when they overheard something that seemed to be relevant to them.
Workshop teaching is about flexibility and drawing on multiple resources to continually build capacity about reading, writing, thinking, and teaching, so it was only appropriate that having various resources ended up being the right fit. However, I did talk to teachers about trying to set goals and layer in different aspects. I mentioned that some of the resources would be helpful but they would decide that they were not ready for them yet. We discussed how they could utilize the resources most aligned with where they are right now and what they would like to implement in the fall. Then as they start to feel that they are ready to further explore a specific aspect they can seek out resources that fit those needs.
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