The Writer's Workshop

Benefits

Practice,
practice,
practice!

Finding power and
purpose
within writing

Gaining a feel
for writing for
an audience
for

Gaining confidence in writing

Ability to hone
in on specific
skills

Mini-Lesson

20-30 minutes

Developing a
specific set of skills

Teacher Read-alouds

Introduce mentor
texts and authors

Develop reading
comprehension

Good writers are
also good readers!

Independent Writing Time

30-40 minutes

either writing short
responses to prompts
or working on gradual
projects over time
res

Clear expectations!

Model behavioural
expectations

Anchor charts

Explicitly establish
routines

Sharing Session

10-15 mins

Prompts

Who tried
something new?

Who revised
something that
wasn't working?

Who is
experiencing
a block and
would like
some help?

Why?

To promote
self-reflection

To identify areas
that need more
explicit instruction

How?

Use prompts to
encourage students to
talk about their work

Focus on the message
of the piece rather than
any errors

Provide
suggestions

Suggest mentor texts

Identify strengths

Encourage peer conferencing

When?

During independent writing sessions