Juli Kendall's Weekly
Writing Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested teachers
are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop and other ideas about
supporting young adolescent writers and readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing
teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion.
Last year, Juli kept a weekly journal from her Reading Workshop.
This year, Juli is continuing her journals, but this time she's focusing
on her Writing Workshop. Find out more about our project at our Reading/Writing
Workshop homepage. You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's Journals,
find out how here.
Writing Workshop
Week #1:
A Book That's
Heavy in Your Hand
Every Language Arts teacher dreams of having a fairy godmother, someone
who can wave a magic wand and magically supply everything needed to make
a dream, like writing workshop, come true.
We got one.
Our writing workshop training -- one of the most talked about professional
opportunities in our district -- occurred over a week's time during the
last of July. Our district brought the national experts to us! But before
all of you start doing back flips of envy over our good fortune, there is
a lot more to this story than one person simply wishing and then finding
someone to make it so.
First of all, our school's venture into writing workshop has taken more
than a year to spread across our entire school. "This year everyone
will do writing workshop," we are told.
The writing workshop we are getting bears little resemblance to anything
we'd dreamed about in the beginning. Back then, we had little more than
a name -- writing workshop -- words we were using to describe a "program"
where we taught our students how to improve their writing. We imagined a
simple, straightforward comfortable program, where classrooms of happy kids
could write the kind of pieces we imagined.
Then we met our fairy godmother, who lives not in Disneyland but in New
York City, where she spends Saturdays reading with her granddaughters and
dancing around her house filled with the joy of books.
What a fairy godmother she is!
Isoke Nia is the Director of Research and Development for the Teachers College
Reading and Writing Project. Isoke is legendary in the world of reading
and writing, both for her abilities and for her uncompromising personal
style. More to the point, she is adept enough to take our rough ideas and
help us turn them into reality. Now visions of realistic fiction, memoir,
and feature articles dance in our heads. Today our Writing Workshop dream
is a gorgeous reincarnation of our work with reading.
Looking for the world
"We don't just read looking for ourselves," she commented during
her Long Beach keynote address, titled Saturday at My House. "We
read looking for the world."
As she talked about Touchstone
Texts, she drew us in to her thinking.
A touchstone text is a piece of literature that is used by a
community of writers to study craft or some aspect of craft (such as genre
or structure) across an extended period of time. It is chosen by the teacher
for use during particular units of study or across several units of study.
The teacher's greatest consideration is - "How much can I teach my
students about reading or writing using this piece of (touchstone) writing?"
It's hard to imagine a clearer example of good writing than a wonderful
piece of literature. This sent us scurrying off to school to sort through
our books. But not just any books p; picture books.
"Picture books make grand touchstones," she told us. (It reminds
me of how Strategies That Work
recommends using picture books to teach reading strategies). "I
read picture books because the teaching possibilities are hidden between
the pages," Isoke continued. "It is the length of the text that
makes it useable.
So how do we select a Touchstone Text? She gave us some clues to follow.
We need a good stack but a stack starts with one. What single
book can I use? It feels heavy in your hand. Which text is the best one?
This process is all about me, not what the children like.
I'm investigating the picture book, Pelitos/Hairs
by Sandra Cisneros, as a Touchstone Text. The story was excerpted from Cisneros'
novel, The House on Mango Street. If I follow Isoke's lead, then
I'll know it is a Touchstone for me if "I have read it and loved it."
Of course, there's more to this than just "love," but it's a good
place to start. I've used it once already, and I plan to go back to it repeatedly
this year to teach my kids about reading and writing. I'll see if, as Isoke
says, "It feels heavy in your hand."
My understanding of Writing Workshop has changed a lot, I'm thinking. I've
had to adjust it to fit with Isoke's vision, as well as, those of the other
trainers from New York who came for the weeklong Writing Institute. Despite
years of working on reading and writing, we still have much to learn.
Thank you, Isoke.
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See Juli's Curricular Calendar (map)
for her Writing Workshop
See a comparison of Juli's Reading and
Writing Workshop plans
Read next week's journal
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
Back to Juli's journal index
Back to the Reader Workshop Index Page