Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Launching the Workshop

I gave the teachers in my Reading and Writing Workshop a taste of what workshop is like similar to the way that I launch workshop each year - with a narrative genre study. Because of the compact nature of the time allotted, I did have to explain what I would do in a regular classroom in some stages, while having them try it out in other portions.

Influenced by Aimee Buckner, I explained that I start the year with stories, reading books that I think have universal themes or experiences with which my students can connect in order to prompt their own thinking about stories they have to share. I showed them one of my favorite start of the year texts, Marianthe's Story: Painted Words and Spoken Memories. I shared with teachers how it is a perfect fit for our community of dual immersion students since all students have stories of learning a new language.

I often talked to students about my own list of possible experiences, such as the first time riding alone in a taxi cab in Mexico when I paid the driver a 50 cent piece (thinking they only had pesos) and being confused when the driver was waiting for more money, rather than getting me my change. I talk about trying to express my confusion and the driver eventually having to take another 50 cent piece out of my hand, holding the two together to say "un peso" and my embarrassment of realizing that I had only given him half of a peso. As such, my students and I would laugh together about experiences learning languages - the joys, the challenges, the laughter...

I mentioned to teachers that I would not necessarily use this book as a start of the year writing workshop launch if I was teaching in my hometown community where most students have not yet experienced learning another language. In that context I would choose another book that would closely connect to my rural community's experience. I shared with teachers how depending on the age and stories students have to tell, it might be that students start writing on the first day or it is just fine to have successive days reading and orally sharing stories, as oral rehearsing is a vital portion of the process, waiting as Buckner says until the day when it seems that everyone in the class has a story to tell.

Then I transitioned into a narrative just for them, Penny Kittle's "of frog legs, crickets, and Superman's cape", one that I first heard when she read it out loud at the Boothbay Literacy Retreat. Just as I imagined I saw teachers smiling and laughing as I read it aloud, and after they were able to think of their own memorable moments with teaching. I guided them through listing, partner sharing, and then writing quick writes, again highlighting the importance of oral rehearsing with the sharing portion in between listing and quick writes. Then they did a whip-around share, each sharing a small portion of their quick write in order to model a different way of sharing.

Next teachers "sat in" on a mini-lesson with Lucy Calkins in her Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5, and I had teachers go back and experiment with their quick write with Calkins' lesson in mind. Then teachers shared with partners again. I heard them respond naturally to each other's writing, as well as noting what stood out to them. They were getting a sense of what it is like to be a part of a community of writers, of what they could foster in their own classrooms.

Reading and Workshop Training: Teachers as Writers

One aspect of workshop philosophy that I wanted to make sure and highlight was the importance of focusing on teachers as writers, a subtle difference from writing teachers, emphasizing that teachers should be exploring, experimenting, and developing as writers right alongside their students. Based on our team builder, most teachers were more comfortable with teaching reading or read more in their personal lives vs. writing. Other teachers mentioned that they know they are more passionate about other subjects and know it is apparent for their students and would like to develop a stronger passion for writing, which will spill over into their classrooms. This seemed to be consistent with many of the teachers when I experienced this activity as a student in a writing course for educators.

Inspired by Penny Kittle, I shared with teachers about how they can serve as powerful mentors of process, while also reading like writers as a class with mentors of product (published texts). I also talked to them about supports to grow as a writer, such as Two Writing Teachers, Ruth Ayres Writes, and Laurie Halse Anderson's Write Fifteen Minutes a Day. I mentioned Donald Murray's philosophy that when it comes to writing, it is not limited to those who naturally have talent, a message that is important for both teachers and students to know.

Thus, teachers had chances to write, share, and celebrate. I would love to have something more sustained to have teachers continue to write and share their writing with peers. In this specific context where many did not have established routines of writing regularly, it would be a nice scaffold to build routines in a community.

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Setting the Tone

The workshop training had five participants, so it was a small group, working out well for discussions. To start the training, I decided to use a team builder that one of my professors at Boise State University used for a writing course. I started out with a ball of yarn and talked about myself as a reader and writer - sharing glimpses into my journey, areas in which I am confident, areas in which I want to grow. Then I tossed the ball of yarn to a colleague while still holding on to my piece. After each person shares, the yarn has made a web, which can be linked to the classroom community and sense of supporting each other that is vital in classrooms. Participants pull back on the yarn until it is taut to show that there needs to be a strong undergirding of support, both teacher to student and student to student.

I enjoyed starting the training with this activity. Though I knew each of the participants and already knew some of what they said, I also learned a lot. I bet they learned something new about me as well. Hearing them talk energized me as well as provided insights into what they might need to feel successful during the training.

Next we switched over to a discussion about current issues in literacy education, prompted by quotes excerpted from Richard Allington's third edition of What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. This opened up a lot of comments, prompted reflection, and gave us a chance to consider the big picture before zooming in to workshop teaching. While Allington does not specifically advocate for workshop teaching, I transitioned into a overview of workshop teaching by explaining that while reading the book, I noticed how many of his suggestions are apparent in workshop teaching, such as time to read, choice, focusing on building teacher capacity, and differentiated instruction. It helped create a stronger sense of the why behind workshop teaching.

I created a presentation about workshop teaching that had brief statements related to workshop philosophy. An adapted version of the presentation is below (the words are all the same, but I swapped out pictures of students because of permissions). I noticed that it sometimes takes a while to load up the full slide. If you click pause on the player until the present slide is fully loaded and then click play, it seems to run through all slides fully loaded.



The combination of a quick introduction of ourselves as readers and writers, followed by Allington's quotes that prompt thinking about the purpose of education, and an overview of workshop teaching seemed to work out well. At that point, I had participants pause to do a written reflection and have a chance to gather their thoughts before transitioning into thinking about themselves as writers.

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Schedule and Posts to Come

Last week I taught a K-8 Reading and Writing Workshop course to some of my colleagues. While planning I thought back and forth about how to organize it and utilize the time available since workshop teaching encompasses a lot. I considered the time allotted (2 days) and the timing of the year (almost 2 weeks before teacher work days begin) and tried to decide what would be most helpful. I knew that it was essential to share the rationale behind workshop teaching, allow teachers to experience workshop, encourage them to focus on themselves as writers, and be able to differentiate to different grade levels. There were many ways that I could have organized the training, but this is what I decided:

Day 1:
Literacy Team Builder
Discussion of Current Issues in Literacy
Overview of Workshop Teaching
Writer's Workshop Focus (Experiencing as Learners)
Lunch
Writer's Workshop Conclusion
Reading Workshop Focus

Day 2:
Overview of Available Resources
Time to Plan/Collaborate with Grade-Level Teams

I debated back and forth about whether to have two "instructional" days or whether to have the second day be for planning and collaborating. I am glad that I decided to allow a portion of time, knowing how it feels to love ideas in a training but then feeling overwhelmed trying to plan to integrate the ideas while also juggling other aspects. While a day is not enough time to completely plan out the year or even the fall, it provided an opportunity to reflect, set up goals, and begin planning, as well as collaborating with peers. We will have follow up meetings in the fall to continue to check in and discuss successes and challenges as they implement their ideas.

I will be doing a series of posts reflecting on the workshop training. It was a valuable experience for me thinking about what is important when thinking about growing into a role of being a literacy leader beyond my own classroom. It was also important in thinking about my own journey as reader, writer, and workshop teacher.

Upcoming Posts:

• Wednesday: Setting the Tone
• Thursday: Teachers as Writers
• Friday: Launching the Workshop: Narrative Genre Study
• Saturday: Power of Seeing
• Sunday: Resources - Where to Start?
• Monday: Teacher Collaboration
• Tuesday: Other Possibilities

Writing as a Gift - Parents to Children Possibilities

The last three years I have talked to my students numerous times about writing as a gift. They have written letters and poems to their parents, notes of appreciation, and a letter to invite someone to apply to a position at our school. I wrote the 8th graders a letter for their graduation present.

Earlier this summer a mom of one of my students shared a birthday poem that she wrote for her daughter - a powerful poem about growing and emerging into who she is becoming. I commented to her that it hit me that I have talked so often about writing as a gift and students have had experience writing it but that many probably do not get to experience writing as a gift from their parents.

I thought back to a retreat that I went to in either junior high or high school and unbeknownst to us, our parents had gathered letters from family and friends to us that they bundled into pillows with a pouch. My mom made my pillow, and it was one of those gifts that is still so meaningful today.

The parent and I started talking about the potential for weaving in a parent project to create writing as a gift for their children as graduation gifts. So many possibilities...

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

Reading Ladders

Middle School Readers

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

Comprehension Going Forward

Igniting a Passion for Reading

Conferring

The Book Whisperer

What Student Writing Teaches Us

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.

Your Child's Writing Life

Lately I have been thinking a lot about education from a parenting and teaching lens. It has been fascinating to watch my daughters grow and develop, gradually approaching my comfort zone of tweens and teens. I have been paying attention to what is consistent among age groups, as well as unique differences. Pam Allyn's Your Child's Writing Life: How to Inspire Confidence, Creativity, and Skill at Every Age fit in perfectly with these wonderings.

Throughout the book what stood out the most was the sense of a patient, nurturing environment embedded in her advice and ideas. She also emphasizes that aside from all the academic benefits, active writing lives serve as an avenue to strengthen parent-child bonds, as well as preserving memories. There was a close match to my writing philosophy.

Allyn starts the book establishing why it is essential to dedicate time to write with our children and foster a love of writing. Then she talks about suggestions for different ages. Other chapters included helping kids work through challenges and stress with writing, mentor texts, and writing prompts. She weaves in experiences with her own daughters, as well as interactions with students through her experiences being a literacy advocate.

I especially loved her suggestions for setting up places to write and supply areas, seeing how it evolved and emerged with the growing ages. Though she often references books throughout all of her chapters, the chapter specifically highlighting twenty mentor texts does a great job of sharing about the books, as well as assets and how they can serve as springboards to writing. Her knowledge about books and skill of connecting them to kids was just as apparent as it was in her Pam Allyn's Best Books for Boys.

I would love for every parent to read this book and implement ideas into their lives. Yet, while reading, I kept on thinking about parents who would buy the book, and it seems like it could potentially be a fairly narrow range, depending on the community, considering that it would be parents who are literate in English and who seek parenting books.

Yet, I also like the potential the book has for teachers to share with parents, whether it is through book talking it to raise awareness or sharing ideas at parent meetings. For example, at our dual immersion school, teachers have bilingual parent meetings. This year I loved a writer's workshop evening hosted by my daughters first grade teachers. Any of Allen's ideas would be beneficial to layer in for the different age groups. It could also be a resource for other community organizations, such as Healthy Start and Head Start that focus on raising awareness for helping develop literate environments and family literacy, which seems appropriate given Allyn's own organizations, LitLife and LitWorld.