Writers'
Workshop at KDES and MSSD
— Best Practice in Teaching Writing —
The
writers' workshop is exactly what Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde
(1993) identified as a best practice. The writers' workshop can
help improve students' writing in the following ways:
- Increase
student ownership and responsibility by:
- helping
students choose their own topics and goals
- using
brief teacher-student conferences
- teaching
students to review their own progress
- Increase
class time spent on writing whole, original pieces through:
- establishing
real purposes for writing and students' involvement in the
task
- instruction
in, and support for, all stages of writing process
- pre-writing,
drafting, revising, editing
Increase teachers' modeling writing—drafting, revising, sharing—as
a fellow author, and as demonstrator of processes
Increase the learning of grammar and mechanics in context, at
the editing stage, and as items are needed
Increase writing for a real audience; publishing for the class
and outside communities
- Increase
the use of the classroom as a supportive setting for shared
learning through:
- active
exchange and valuing of students' ideas
- collaborative
small group work
- conferences
and peer critiquing that give responsibility for improvement
to authors
Increase writing across the curriculum as a tool for learning
- Increase
constructive and efficient evaluation that involves:
-
brief informal responses as students work
- thorough
grading of just a few student-selected, polished pieces
- focus
on a few errors at a time
- cumulative
view of growth and self-evaluation
- encouragement
of risk-taking and honest expression
The writers' workshop is an important part of literacy at both
Kendall Demonstration Elementary School and the Model Secondary
School for the Deaf.
Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., and Hyde, A. (1998). Best
Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in American's
School, Second Edition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Books,
ISBN 0-325-00091-3
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