Skip to main content

Emergent Writers' Workshop

Emergent Writers’ Workshop

Writers’ Workshop is a wonderful approach to writing instruction because it gives students many choices and lots of time to practice. Generally, the teacher chooses the genre and the students are allowed to pick their own topic within that genre.

A typical workshop lesson would contain the following pieces:
  • Mini-lesson (short, 5-15 minutes)
  • Independent writing time and conferring with teacher (usually about 30 minutes)
  • Sharing Time (5-10 minutes)

These elements may look a little different in a classroom of emerging writers, especially at first as the students are building up their stamina.

There are specific things you want to look for in the work of emerging writers. These are the students we typically find in our Transitional Kindergarten, Kindergarten and First Grade classrooms.
  • Are they primarily expressing themselves through pictures? If so, is there meaning in the pictures?
  • Can they “read” their writing to you?
  • Are they using what they know about letters to try and spell words?
  • Are they approximating writing by drawing lines/squiggles or random strings of letters?
  • Is their writing phonetically correct?

The important thing to keep in mind is that there are different developmental stages of writing. The goal of each stage is to move onto the next stage. If a student is only drawing squiggles and is not able to explain their meaning to you, the next step would be to teach them that writing always has meaning. They would not yet be ready to add words to their writing.
However, if a student is writing random strings of letters, the next step might be teaching them how to stretch out words and write the sounds they hear using the alphabet chart. It really helps to focus on teaching them one thing at a time.

Emergent writers are able to write in all sorts of genres. We have found that having students write stories for their classmates to act out is a very powerful way of getting them to add more details to their story.

If you are interested in learning more about emerging writers and a  Writers’ Workshop Unit of Study on writing stories for others to act out, please attend our STEP Committee workshop at the DKG California Convention on May 4, 2019 from 8:30-10:30.

Also, check out our Writers’ Workshop Pinterest Board here:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Resources For Teaching For Racial Justice

We are all watching the demonstrations happening right now in response to the many years of discrimination and oppression of people of color and wondering what we can do as educators to help ensure that our society does better moving forward. As educators we have the power and the ability to be part of the solution. There are many resources available that can help guide us on that journey. We hope that the books,websites and resources below will empower you to help make the change that is needed right now.  We must also acknowledge that every teacher comes to issues of race differently based on their own experiences and identity/ies. White educators have a special responsibility to increase their own understanding and to listen when they are fortunate enough to hear about the experiences of their colleagues of color. However, we must ensure that the burden of informing others about the history and experience of racism does not rest on the shoulders of our colleagues an...
Post a Comment
Read more

High Quality Anchor Charts

High Quality Anchor Charts One of the best ways to support your students’ independence is to create high quality anchor charts. Anchor charts are helpful in the following ways: Keep the learning alive on the walls of your classroom. Support independence because students can access them as needed. Can hold visuals to help cement the learning. Can help to make expectations really clear. Can be used to illustrate processes as well as examples of what work should look like. Can be used for behavioral as well as academic information. Tips for creating really high quality anchor charts: Make a plan ahead of time but create charts while the children are present. Have children do some of the writing. Add as many visuals as possible, students can even help pick which pictures to use. Use as few words as possible. Use dark ink for the text of the chart, preferably black, use colored ink for emphasis. Simple drawings can be just as powerful as compl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Workshop and Balanced Literacy?

    We have all heard about the pendulum of literacy instruction that forever seems to swing back and forth between isolated phonics instruction and/or diving right into immersing children in reading and writing experiences. Another way of looking at the possibilities for literacy instruction is a more balanced approach that incorporates benefits from both sides of the Whole Language vs Phonics debate. If we use a balanced literacy approach for our literacy instruction, students can benefit from explicit, direct instruction in Phonics as well as engage in authentic reading and writing experiences. Reading and Writing Workshop are integral to a balanced literacy approach in addition to other foundational practices such as: shared reading, interactive writing, guided reading and Phonics or word work, just to name a few.  For the purposes of this post, reading and writing workshop are defined as structures that have the following components: daily, succinct mini-...
1 comment
Read more