The Writer's Workshop
I want to start by saying that I really like the idea of a course based around the writer’s workshop. The last general English course that I took was in 9th grade, as my high school options were more focused on either literature or writing. However, even in the writing classes, none of them were as focused or writing intense as the writer’s workshop framework advocates. They also tended to be more teacher focused, with assigned topics, formats, and timetables. It is hard for me to imagine, as a teacher, how the writer’s workshop would function, as I never experienced it as a student. Yet, it intrigues me nonetheless.
When it comes to the application of this model of teaching writing, and English language arts in general, I do wonder at the feasibility in the more generalized high school ELA classroom. Most of the examples discussed by Nancie Attwell and others focus on elementary and middle school levels, when writing is first being introduced. Continuing this model with high schoolers who have already been exposed to the writer’s workshop early on is one thing, but how well do they take to it with no prior exposure? During my observation last week, students watched a video about their course options for the next year, and anything that focused on writing was met largely by groans and dismissals.
A second obstacle is that, at least at my current school, 10th grade English is still a combine literature and writing course with curricular guidelines that require extensive content coverage. Attwell’s suggestion for implementing a writer’s workshop in this context is to devote half the year to a writer’s workshop, and the remainder of the year to content coverage, except still devoting one day a week to writing. In other words, cover a year’s worth of content in 40% of the time. How realistic is this when already content is already being cut due to lack of sufficient time? It would be great if we could just say to hell with it and structure our classes however we desire, but in the era of standards and high-stakes testing, I don’t think this is really an option for most teachers, let alone teachers just beginning their careers.
Consequently, my thinking on the subject has been primarily focused on how I can adapt or tweak the underlying goals and intent of the writer’s workshop to fit the setting I am finding myself in. More than anything else, the two central goals of this model seem to be fostering fluency and interest in writing through consistent practice and student choice in style and content. A sort of mini version of this that I have been toying around with is to take the concept of the writer’s notebook, and change it into a communally created dialogic notebook. I am envisioning students being assigned specific notebooks that are shared anonymously across classes.
As an example, one student from first, fourth, fifth, and seventh hour all share a single notebook that remains in the class, but they do not know the identities of the other students. The first five minutes (flexible based on student interest and ability to sustain writing) of each class is devoted to writing in this notebook. Student’s can write whatever they would like, be it about their day, to ask a question about something being covered in a class, a story, a poem, or whatever peaks their interest. Each entry would start by responding to something another student has written in the journal, before moving on to what they wanted to write. The goal is to both get students writing, and to see writing as a communal and generative process in a context where the teacher functions only as an observer. I don’t know how well this idea would go over, or how I would need to tailor it to perhaps focus on a more targeted academic goal, but it seems like something I might try out in my student teaching just to see where it leads.
Resource:
http://www.truelifeimateacher.com/p/anchor-charts.html
This is a blog post that talks about the ins and outs of anchor charts. These are something I noticed in a lot of classrooms during my observation at a local middle school, with the exception, oddly enough, of the language arts rooms. I also have not noticed them much, if at all, at the high school level. I wonder how much they can add to a high school classroom, or if they are more targeted towards a younger audience.
Ethan, I LOVE the notebook idea that you've come up with. I wrote in my post about how the writer's workshop or writing in-class is typically a public act, and I then connected it to what Fletcher mentions in Boy Writers about how writing being a public act means the failure of it is public as well. I think what you've come up with is a way to subvert this - by having students share a notebook they can provide meaningful and genuine feedback on their peers' writing. I also like that you keep it open to pretty much any kind of writing - it's something that will definitely contribute to developing fluency. I'm excited to talk about it with you.
ReplyDeleteEthan,
ReplyDeleteI will start at the end of your post and write that I really like your notebook idea. It seems to me you are working to address what I found seriously lacking in the Atwell chapter. Although to be honest I was mostly snarky about the extent of her obsession with details, I was disheartened by her lack of attention to considering writing a communal effort. Your notebook idea is a possible avenue for encouraging communication that goes beyond the fairly narrow, nearly one-way street of student writing for (and to) the teacher. Although we all know I'm not a tech cheerleader, in high-tech classrooms I would think this could be done on-line. But as it is, I would think that circulating notebooks make a fine place to get things going. Does anyone else have somewhat fond memories of writing in yearbooks—and reading what people wrote about or to you? Somehow I think that the more communal writing, the better.
As for your concern about time—that ever-present demon—I am also seriously worried about simply not having enough time to actually set up a writing workshop classroom so it is effective. On the other side of it, I am also concerned that converting a classroom to a writing workshop might demand a full transformation. Is it effective to attempt to integrate only some of the ideas? I wonder if it is a case of needing to be "in for a penny, in for a pound." That said, I think that the book my group will be presenting—Christiansen's *Reading, Writing, and Rising Up*—has some excellent advice on relatively seamless exercises and suggestions for integrating writing into a literature curriculum. I would recommend it highly.