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 #2:

Exploring Some Questions
About Writing Workshop


Opening up the Dixie Chicks' new CD, "Home," which I bought under the cover of darkness, I find these words written on the back of the album notes:
"We're changing the way we do business."
Yes, that's exactly right. As we begin this school year, things are changing about how we do business in writing workshop. And change means that we have lots of questions about structure, management, organization and tone. But we're not the only ones with questions.

Throughout the summer and the beginning of this school year, questions about writing workshop surfaced on MiddleWeb's Reading and Writing Project listserv. These questions reflect our common concerns as we all "get started" with our writing and reading workshops.

So, where do we go to find answers? I'm using three books written by Katie Wood Ray as a foundation for writing workshop this year. Although they also talk about elementary grades, there are many great ideas that translate directly to writing workshop in middle school.

Katie Wood Ray's books:

Wondrous Words, Writers and Writing, National Council of Teachers of English, 1999

The Writing Workshop, Working Through the Hard Parts (And They're All Hard Parts), National Council of Teachers of English, 1999

What You Know by Heart, How to Develop Curriculum for Your Writing Workshop, Heinnemann, 2002


Questions about Structure

Here are some questions from our listserv discussion:
" I see my students for 45 minutes on Mondays, then 2-90 minute blocks the rest of the week. I'm trying to figure out how to organize my days for workshop."

" How do you work in both reader and writer's workshop within a week? What does it actually look like in real time on a minute by minute basis?"

"We told our LA teachers to do 3 days of reader's workshop and 2 days of writers workshop, and alternate the following week. How exactly does that work when they get into some lengthy writing assignment?"
What Katie says:
"When I have taught writing on a junior-high-type, fifty-minute-a-day schedule, I have sometimes segmented the week, rather than a single day, with this balance in mind by doing a full day of combined focused teaching and inquiry, three solid days of independent work on writing, and then a long end-of-the-week sharing time from our work as writers." The Writing Workshop, p. 56
What we're doing:

Within our writing workshop, we are thinking of "a balance of time rather than specific amounts of time." Our blocks are 90 minutes, so we'll have 45 minutes for writing workshop and 45 minutes for reading workshop. But we may need to make adjustments if balance becomes an issue.


A Question about Management
"I am especially interested in the structure and management (management particularly) of both reading and writing workshop. My kids do well with whole class and group activities, but whenever I push them to read or write independently, they become (all of a sudden) extremely social and reluctant. Do you have a gradual release of guidance? What procedures and techniques have worked for you?"
What Katie says:
"Writing workshops need to be predictable places so that wonderful, unpredictable things can happen in them. The time that we spend up-front, at the beginning of the year, teaching our students how the workshop 'works' is an investment for teaching during the rest of the year." Wondrous Works, p. 212
What we're doing:

Teaching "the task" seems to make a difference for our kids. The first few weeks of school I go very slowly with the content and just teach "what is writing workshop?"
I've found that every little piece needs to be taught, from what to do with writer's notebooks to behavior standards and expectations. This often takes three to four weeks to make sure that everyone understands and has learned what they need to know to be successful in writing workshop. It could be called a gradual release of responsibility.

First, we do everything as a whole class and work until everyone is ready to practice independently. If last year's teacher did writing workshop, it makes it much quicker and easier to begin. Then if anything goes amiss, we stop, reteach and relearn. This continues all year long and works well with my classes.

Our behavior expectations:

1. Respect everyone.
2. Follow directions.
3. Ask 3 and then me.


A Question about Assessment
"How do others address grading of workshop time? I plan to grade my writer's notebooks twice this 9-week period (I haven't developed a rubric yet - and may ask students to help create one) but would like to hear what others do for grades."
What Katie says:
"Assessment should match what we value, and I value many things in a student's development as a writer." Wondrous Words, p. 272
What we're doing:

I'm using a rubric for writer's notebooks that I developed from two checklists. Initially, I'll probably score the notebooks on a weekly basis to make sure that the kids understand what is expected of them and get a chance to improve their work over time.

[Download Juli's rubric. She'll talk more about it in an upcoming journal.]


Questions about Organization
"Also, how can I incorporate the topics being covered in their Social Studies classes into the workshop atmosphere?"

"I'm coordinating with the Science teacher on my team this year, we're all (our whole team) focusing on reading, but the Science teacher and I want to work together. What does this look like in a reading and writing workshop classroom?"
What Katie says:
"The problem is, when we were in school, most of us never did the kinds of things we now ask our students to do. If we do not do them as teachers, then, we would actually be trying to teach our students how to do things we've never done ourselves. This is why so may of us try-at least once-the things we are asking students to do in our writing workshops." What You Know by Heart, p. 2
What we're doing:

From the beginning of the year, we are working to infuse reading and writing into all content areas. The curriculum maps and calendars we adapted place thematic projects in the last quarter of the year. We'll work across content areas to design integrated reading and writing projects, and then try them first ourselves before we ask our students to do them. Based on our own experiences, they may need to be fine-tuned.


Questions about Tone
"How do I get my kids to take risks, understanding that not everything they write will be fabulous? They are SOOOOO dependent on my input and opinion, even when I try to direct the focus back to what they have learned and what they think..."

"My kids have such a hard time working independently. They seem to need to check in with me at every step in the process. I want them to develop the ability to work independently on their writing. Help!"
What Katie says:
"The tone of writing workshop, then, begins with teachers seeing their students as writersWe ask our students, our writers, to spend their time differently than other teachers: 'Every day you will have 40 minutes to spend working on your writing.'The tone for every single interaction in the writing workshop is set by the fact that we view our students as writers." The Writing Workshop, p. 42
What we're doing:

One of the things that I'll be focusing on in my teaching this year is how I address my kids. Addressing them as "writers" empowers them and makes them more receptive and responsible. I'm going to teach with this expectation and make it clear, from day one, that I view them as writers and I expect them to act as such. I did this last year with great success, but I introduced it later in the year.


As I start working with the kids in writing workshop and envision the year ahead, I'm reminded of another quote from the Dixie Chicks' album notes:

"It's amazing how much gets done."



Download Juli's Curricular Calendar (map) for her Writing Workshop

Download a comparison of Juli's Reading and Writing Workshop plans

Read next week's journal

Read last week's journal

Read Juli's backgrounder about her work

Back to Juli's journal index

Back to the Reader Workshop Index Page