I implemented a writer’s workshop in my classroom that consisted of 25-30 minutes daily lessons broken into 3-4 different parts. A teacher-led mini-lesson and modeling started off the time for 7-10 minutes. Students then went to their seats and began their writing time for 10-15 minutes. During writing time, I met with a few students to discuss their writing, things they could add or take away, or what I noticed about their writing. At the end of writing time, I allowed 1-2 students to share what they had been working on with the class. Time permitting, students were able to ask questions about the piece and even give suggestions to the author.

 

I chose to implement this in my classroom because I saw a lack of confidence and achievement in writing. After doing extensive research about writer’s workshop and interviewing other teachers about how they use writer’s workshop in their classrooms, I knew it was the way to go to see improvement in my students’ writing. All of the research I did was able to help me see how to implement it most effectively in my classroom. Suggestions for how much time to allow for each part of the workshop helped me strategically plan out each day. Taking it one day at a time helped my students not get too overwhelmed with writing. In the beginning, we worked on stamina by working for shorter amounts of time at and then gradually extending it as time went on. This allowed my students to get more used to the amount of writing time and also to become more independent with sounding out words and thinking of writing ideas. My group of students this year needed a lot of reminders to stay on task so this step was huge when putting a writing workshop into place.

 

The most effective way I found to differentiate for various learning goals was hosting the individual conferences. I would try to meet with each student at least once every 2 weeks. If I saw a few specific students needed more attention and encouragement, I made sure to meet with them more often to check in on their progress. I knew some of my students were able to do more than I was teaching during the mini-lessons, so I would challenge them and encourage them to add more details to the work they were doing. Conferences made it possible for me to differentiate each and every day for my students in order to ensure all students were making growth. These conferences ensured I was meeting the diverse learning needs of my students by working with students toward individual goals and providing scaffolded instruction to support those goals.

 

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My classroom environment always demonstrated equity between every person who entered the doors. Students were presented with a positive learning environment and supported in any way they would need. If students ever needed extra assistance, they knew that I was always open to talking with them. I followed a schedule so I was able to meet with each of my students fairly and equally throughout our writer’s workshop.  In the beginning, I was mostly teaching how the process goes so I wasn’t meeting with anyone one-on-one. Once the students understood how the writer’s workshop worked and flowed, I was better able to meet with each student without getting interrupted. As they got better at doing the writing process on their own, I was able to more frequently meet with them. I had a list of students to meet with and was generally able to stick with it even with several snow days that popped up. I made sure to track aspects of what we talked about so I could refer to my anecdotal notes during my next conference with that student. Although I encouraged the independence of my students during this time, I was able to meet their needs and be accessible during writing time and individual conferences. I was able to meet with every student by the end of each week and took anecdotal notes to keep track of goals and next steps. My students were also allowed to write what they wanted to, at times. I was able to hear multiple perspectives of each of my students and more about what they were interested in. The students in my classroom were encouraged to express their opinions in their writings. While meeting with each student, I was able to determine skills that needed to be worked on more than others and which students needed more frequent meetings. My research indicated the importance of conferencing with each student and figuring out goals for each individual to focus on. This allowed me to teach them something about their writing and help them expand on their writing that they could use in the future.

 

Throughout the implementation of my study, I collaborated with both internal and external stakeholders. Internally, I was able to talk with my grade-level teaching partner and see how she pursued writing in her classroom. Although she did not utilize a writer’s workshop specifically, she has been teaching kindergartners how to write for 12 years, so her insight was very helpful. She was able to give me tips and tricks about how to encourage confidence in my kindergartners' writing. She even suggested giving them a few prompts to choose from if they were struggling to come up with a writing topic. The menu of writing prompts allowed students to get started faster, rather than spending all their time thinking about what they would write. I was also able to talk with my principal about managing my classroom a little better during this time. He suggested I clearly define the expectations of this time, as with any time throughout the day, before proceeding with the workshop.

 

It was also important I reach outside of my building to collaborate with professionals to support my implementation of writing conferences. I was able to talk with my CADRE Associate about implementing writing workshop in my classroom. She spent several hours a week in my classroom and was able to give tips about teaching writing. She also lent me several resources to help me in my research. My associate put me in contact with a master teacher in another building who extensively teaches a writer’s workshop in her classroom. I was able to converse with her and collaboratively plan out a schedule that would best suit my classroom and my students. Some of my CADRE peers were also able to give me insight into what they were doing in their classrooms when it came to writing. I enjoyed hearing other perspectives and being able to implement some outside ideas into my plan.