The art of getting every student to write every day

The actual writing part of the writer’s workshop was the easiest to implement. Or so I thought. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fluid, authentic process, but getting there was the strange part of the journey. Since we’re discussing journal writing, let me chronicle the progression of the writing experience.

Week 1: I explained what the writer’s workshop should look like to the students and we talked about the journaling. Most students opted for an electronic journal, though a few in each of the three eighth grade English sections chose to write pen-and-paper. I asked the students whether they wanted to chose their own topics or have directed topics. We decided on a mix agreeing there was nothing worse than staring at a blank page. In retrospect, this was our first decision as a group of writers.

I researched journal prompts and found tons of ideas. Virtually, all I had to do was copy and paste. So started the writing process. The first week, while students were writing, I brainstormed ideas for mini lessons. I decided on something the students seemed to need as well as something in which I was well versed -- sentence structure. We went over simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. My primary goal was to stick within the time limit and I did accomplish this goal although students did not get all they could have from the lessons. The next time this lesson is presented, it needs to be more focused and compact. Students did not have an opportunity to practice this skill either because we were focusing on getting used to writing every day. In retrospect, I should have done this lesson again a few weeks later when we had the rhythm of the workshop.

Week 2: This was the week that the mini lessons were horrid and I was having reservations about this process. But I was determined to implement the workshop model because all I had heard and read about it made sense to me. The more kids wrote, the better they would write. This week was a little different since there was a reading response (text dependent analysis) and an essay we would be working on based on a science fiction unit. Therefore, students could free write, write based on a prompt, or work on a writing assignment. This week I was a more deliberate in monitoring students and found that many students were not writing. The electronic journal, while advantageous on one hand, presented some challenges. Any teacher who uses technology in their classroom can probably guess what those challenges are. Now I had to get students off youtube and into writing.

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Week 3: The mini lessons were back on track and I actually found some good ideas for a lesson idea on connotation. With some modifications to ensure it fit into my 10-minute timeframe, I was ready to tackle another week. This lesson led into lessons on word choice and some writing activities that tied directly to the lesson. While the general philosophy of writer’s workshop is that students self-select topics about which to write, I realized that I had to motivate many of the students to stay on task during the journal sessions. Therefore, I had to modify the workshop to meet the needs of the classroom. I broke with tradition and assigned a writing prompt. After the sports team ice-breaker, we talked briefly about the color gray. What is the literal meaning of gray? And then, what images does gray conger? Students were then asked to write to the prompt: To me color word means __________. A quick circulation around the room and a few students redirected to the task, and everyone was writing. I went to my desk and wrote as well. After I completed my entry, another circulation around the room. Everyone was on task! Students were asking me to read their entries. Students were asking for ideas to write more. After the writing session, we tried another component of the Workshop model -- sharing. I shared my entry about the color pink and many students raised their hands to share. Not only were they willing to share their ideas, but actually eager to share. Now I felt like we were getting somewhere. Although the remainder of the week was not an smooth as the first day, students were getting into the workshop and there was a lot more writing happening.

Week 4: This week was a little crazy. It started off fine with good mini lessons on word choice and the sparse use of adverbs. Then it snowed. A snow day and a late start and Writer’s Workshop was done for the week. (We don’t do Workshop of Fridays since we have a special schedule so students can have science labs.)

Week 5: More snow threatened, but we plodded forward in the workshop. Students were again off task and had to be redirected to their journals. We discussed a grading policy for the writing. Since we started the Workshop, writing grades were getting thin and I wasn’t sure how I was giving grades. I proposed that every four weeks I would check the progress in journals, students would choose a few entries for me to read, and there would be a formal writing assignment twice in the marking period. One would be based on something they wrote in their journal. The second would be teacher-directed. In addition, essays based on reading would now count in the writing section. I would be looking for things we discussed and practices in the workshop mini lessons.

This was also an opportunity to get students used to a conferencing environment. I met with students to see where they were in the process, how much writing they had done, and how they felt about the journal writing and the workshop model in general. I found that just as most of the experts said, everyone was in a different place in the process. It was difficult to accept this, but it is my difficulty and students should be in different places. Also, it had only been five weeks and every student had a journal (either paper or electronic) and had entries, although some had five entries and others had 30. Some students reminded me they were working on other assignments that had been submitted for a grade and some assignments were to revise a piece they had already written. The best part of this process was that almost every student said they enjoyed the workshop model and wanted to continue doing Writer’s Workshop.

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Week 6: You would think by this time I’d be an expert at Writer’s Workshop. Well, I wasn’t and I’m still not. There are still many things to learn and try. In week six, however, my mini lessons were much better. One of the students even mentioned how I was staying on task with my mini lessons when I complained that some of the lessons were a flop. The mini lessons this week focused on narrator point of view and narrator voice. We stuck with first person point of view and, to be honest, I actually learned a few things when researching material for the lesson plans. Admittedly, they were things I knew but had never thought to present to middle school students or hadn’t used in so long they were near forgotten. For example, the stream of consciousness narrative that is rarely presented in middle school, yet one of my students actually read my example, Catcher in the Rye. The subjective narrator, like those frequently seen in Poe and in the two Poe tales we had read earlier in the year, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat,” in which the narrator tries to get the reader to see their perspective and is usually unreliable.

We had some fun with this lesson as I did some read alouds using favorite children’s books with a first person narrator who has a strong voice. One is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day -- but any Alexander book would do since the main character has the same voice in all the stories. The other is a little know book by Peggy Parish (best known for Amelia Bedelia) called No More Monsters For Me. A directed assignment was given after the readings to rewrite a part of the story from a different character’s point of view. I started conferencing this week but did not keep records.

The conferencing happened organically during the directed lessons. As I circulated, students would ask me to read their work. This allowed for immediate feedback on a skill which in turn allowed students to immediately use a strategy. For example, a student was writing about an event that happened in the future. He started his piece with “It is 100 years from today,” then continued to write a journal. We discussed ways he could show rather than tell the date. He could show it through the action or he could use more specific dates in the journal entries. He made the revision and strengthened his narrative.

And then there was another snow day!

Week 7: Week seven. It was well into March -- no more snow (hopefully). Read aloud, mini lesson, journaling, conferencing, a little sharing -- I had all of the components integrated into the 45 minute writing period. We even had an assignment to complete. Students were writing a first-person subjective narrative. I suggested they defend something they did wrong and gave an example of breaking curfew. It could be fiction or autobiographical and had to be at least one typed page. This week I also planned some small group and individual conferences that were based on student needs.

My goal was to get the students used to the conference component and needed my lesson to be well-prepared and familiar. With state testing around the corner, I decided to focus the conferences on skills required for the writing on the test. I did everything from advanced lessons on integrating quotes to refreshers on how to write the opening paragraph to basic lessons on how to get started for students who are first-time testers.

I know this is hard to believe but there was another snow day! And the following day we started two hours late.

Week 8: It’s a short week due to Spring Break, but I still try to get in some writer’s workshop time. One class did a full workshop with a read aloud, mini lesson, journal time, and sharing. We continued talking about the first person narrator. This time I read a piece by Dan Greenburg in which he presents a stylized Hemingway. It is extremely exaggerated but fun, like when the Papa Bear says he loves Mama Bear and the porridge.

The students then wanted to try Hemingway’s style in their journal. Of course, they were actually copying the highly stylized example of Dan Greenburg writing in the style of Hemingway. This did give me an idea for a future lesson in which we will read an actual story by Hemingway.

The text in a prior literature series is “A Day’s Wait.” It is a short story about a boy who does not understand fahrenheit and celsius temperature. He has a fever of 102 degrees and believes he is dying. I have an article about Hemingway’s writing style touting his use of short sentences, strong verbs, and limited use of adjectives. Students can write a piece using better verbs instead of adjectives to convey the action. This also connects to a previous lesson on eliminating adverbs which could be reviewed to allow students more opportunities to tighten up their writing. Another lesson on writing styles is Bradbury and the use of imagery in “A Sound of Thunder.” But I digress (and perhaps ramble a bit).

Week 9: I wasn’t sure about Writer’s Workshop. Was it working? Were students writing? Was writing improving? I knew I wasn’t there yet, but there had to be indications that this model was working. There were some signs of enthusiasm like the Hemingway lesson and the sharing, but I needed more. I started snooping since students weren’t sharing every journal entry with me.

I started conferencing to “get the status” of individual student participation in the Writer’s Workshop model. I was surprised. Many students were writing -- not only writing but writing every day. About 25 percent of the students in the three eighth grade sections were writing daily. One student noted, however, that although he didn’t have a writing sample for every day we did workshop, some days he was continuing a thought and others he was revising a piece of writing. When he showed me his history (as his journal was electronic), it was true. There was evidence of editing and revising in the history. As to who was writing, that brought the totals up considerably as other students reported they were writing, but not necessarily a new journal entry every day.

In the end, about 85 percent of students were participating in the workshop and writing something (whether working on journal entries or an assignment to be submitted). It was encouraging, but I still had 15 percent of the students not writing. So what were they doing.

Many times their electronic journal showed they attempted the writing, but often there were many blank Google-docs or pages with one or two words, maybe a sentence. Clearly, these students needed some direction. We started by taking anything they had written and copying it into one document call “My Journal.” Most of the finished entries were based on assignments I had given rather than journal prompts or free writing. I would have to think about other options to get this group writing because clearly the blank page was preventing them from participating in the writing model. That took care of another ten percent.

Now for the final five percent. This group had time management issues. They spent a lot of time getting to their journal (whether checking grades or searching for a play list). Other times they just sat and talked to a neighbor -- sometimes the person with whom they were conversing was actually writing an entry! They needed different motivation to get started and had no documentation that they were doing anything. Next week the state test begins so I will use the next three weeks of testing -- yes, three weeks -- to tweak and try a more structured workshop experience. I’ll need a plan.

Week 10: The end of the marking period and Writer’s Workshop is routine. The students and I know exactly what to do during each phase of the workshop. It doesn’t always go as smoothly as we would like, but the components are evident and we are conscious of the time constraints. As for five percent, I have suspended conferences to focus on keeping them focused. The next unit is poetry and there is usually a high participation rate.

Weeks 11 to 14: PSSA. Writer’s workshop was on a floating schedule for the three weeks dedicated to the state test. We started a poetry unit and also focused on poetry in the workshop. Although some complain about writing poetry, most students welcomed the relief from essays and literature responses. Even the complainers wrote during every session and used ideas from the poetry lessons.

Week 15: It’s May and time for projects and field trips and outdoor activities. The 8th grade also does a service project -- a Spirit Week (including fun day) for the school. They plan games and lead the activities with the pre-k to 7 classrooms. From playing Duck-Duck-Goose with first grade to organizing a kickball game between 6th and 7th grade -- the students are busy planning, organizing, and implementing the event. Next year, Writer’s Workshop and more notes will follow. For now, there is a lot to think about.