As a teacher have you ever asked yourself, what can I do to aid my
students to become exceptional writers’/authors’?
If you have, then you are just like me. I have looked up many strategies to
go about completing the task of assisting my students within the classroom to easily
express themselves through writing. However, it was via the exposure to the
learning of scaffolding through the use of the Writer’s Workshop within my LIT 102
course that I was able to gain an understanding of its components and how to go about implementing
it. In addition to other scaffolding techniques that I learned within this course,
I felt like Writer's Workshop is a very effective method for encouraging
students to contribute ideas and incorporate them into their writing. Other
scaffolding techniques included show-and-tell, visual aids, the pause, ask
questions, and review strategy, and tapping into prior knowledge that I had previously
used in the classroom.
What is a Writers Workshop you may ask? Well! Initially, Writers Workshop
for me seemed like something that would be drawn out and basically too long of
a strategy to be taught by a teacher to a class, but as I progressed in
understanding what the writer’s workshop entailed, it’s basically an organized framework
for teachers as myself and others to use for teaching writing and it is very
beneficial once implemented in the classrooms.
What are the
benefits of Writer’s Workshop you may ask? Let’s take a look:
My understanding of scaffolding was further solidified by the mini-lessons, discussions, and demonstrations presented by my classmates and the lecturer throughout the course as they covered scaffolding techniques using the Focus Lessons, Writing Time, and Sharing components of the Writer's Workshop.
Some of these
included:
Pair writing and Pair editing
Writing
Conference: teach the writer, writer’s intent, writer’s need,
Group share
The next class will sure love to see more demonstrations and presentations, hopefully, to fit the time given so as to get all groups presenting in one go. What do you guys think?
Hey Roannah!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post. You ask what I would do to aid my students to become exceptional writers’/authors. To sum it up, the main thing I would do is allow them to choose their topic. I find that this strategy channels their creativity as they are able to express themselves freely without any limitations with the content. I also agree with your point on the Writers Workshop being very effective but I can already anticipate it being very strenuous to implement. However, I believe once we plan the workshop effectively, it can be done. In my opinion, Language Arts, composition writing to be exact, has a lot of strategies but it also requires a lot of patience from both the teacher's perspective and the student (the main reason I dislike the subject). I have experienced in my own class, students being frustrated more in Language Arts than they are in the other subject areas. That could be a reflection of my own (poor) teaching, as I didn’t utilize many of the strategies we are now being taught. Thank God for teacher training right? As time progresses I am eager to see your thought process and ideas on the different literature topics.
Cheers.
Very interesting post Roannah. I also have had issues with my students in both reading and writing. The writer’s workshop is the answer to our prayers. I totally agree with you on allowing students to choose their own topics when they can as it allows them to explore things that they like or enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the video you shared about implementing the writer’s workshop. It was short but very informative. When we do master the writer’s workshop it will be a powerful tool in taking our students to the next level in their writing. The strategies that you mentioned were also really good and I intend to implement them in my own lessons. This course will equip us to support our students as they develop their writing skills. When you have a chance take a look at my post I posted some graphic organizers that you might find helpful. Let me know what you think.
Roannah, your post was very informative, and yes, just like you, I use to wonder how to help my students. Thanks to you I now have some strategies at my disposal. I will let you know how it all turns out when I use them with my students in Barbuda!
ReplyDelete