We officially started Writer's Workshop in our classroom yesterday! (I had tried dabbling in some pieces before, but nothing structured.) I know what most of you are thinking--it's basically December. Why in the world am I starting this now?! And I am asking myself the same thing. My district doesn't have a strong writing curriculum, and my college classes did not prepare me to teach writing. So I took some time to figure out what would work and how to make it work. So even though we have 3 weeks until Christmas break (woo hoo!) and then only one semester, we are still starting it. I figure, some is better than none!
Much to my surprise, my kids did great! I was nervous that they would not do well with the unprompted writing and not getting up to ask me constant questions, but they did so good! Yesterday, we just talked about what our Writer's Workshop will look like--mini-lessons, writing, sharing, and my expectations.
Today, we brainstormed some topics to write about, since some of mine struggled with what to write about yesterday. (Hopefully an anchor chart on those ideas will be posted soon!) I'm excited to dive more into writing as the year goes on!
I felt like I was reading our exact thoughts:
ReplyDeletenot a strong writing curriculum (or any),
not a strong professional development background in writing, and starting writer's workshop. We just started this year as well. We have been trying to write about our journey too! Maybe we can help each other :)
Em
curiousfirsties.blogspot.com