Did anyone else's summer go by faster than usual this year? I feel like it was just the last day of school and here we are at the beginning of a new school year. Despite by fly-by summer, I am excited for this new school year and have spent some of my summer working on curriculum for this new school year.
As I thought about this first blog post of the school year and debated various topics, I finally settled on introducing something I am very excited about. And that is Writing Workshop, something new that I am adding to my curriculum planning.
While my 7th grade students have always been assigned different writing assignments throughout the school year, this will be my first official time using a writing workshop format. This change has been spurred by a few things. First, even with the state writing tests vanishing, we know that writing is such an important skill for students interested in any career path and that currently students in our district have shown some room for growth in their writing. Secondly, the ELA (English Language Arts) Common Core Standards, which our state has adopted, call for equal time spent writing and reading and have greatly increased the expectations for students in different writing genres.
The main resource I will be relying on this school year to help develop Writing Workshop is the Lucy Calkins Writing Program. This program outlines the major components of writing workshop and includes targeted writing mini lessons to help students' writing flourish.
What I have liked the most about this resource is that its focus is building writers from their individual starting points and that while there are whole class lessons, another component is individual and small group conferences for continued instruction. I also have been impressed with how the resource uses a natural writing sequence so that all aspects of writing have time in the spotlight - not just the organization and conventions, but the generating of ideas and best describing what you want to say.
So please ask your students to share their writing with you throughout the school year. Our focus first trimester is realistic fiction writing, which are always fun for students and often entertaining to read.
