WRITING WORKSHOP

The Writing Workshop addresses the Six Traits concept and takes it a step further. For every writing piece the writer must understand his/her Purpose for writing, know the Organization of the particular writing piece, provide appropriate Details, demonstrate a strong command of his/her Voice, and improve one’s Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics in the process. And students will learn that writing is, indeed, a process. Students can expect to complete a writing piece for every week in the class taking each piece through the writing process: brainstorming, 1^st handwritten draft, 2^nd typed draft, peer conference, teacher-edit conference, and revision/final draft. Writing Workshop A focuses on the writing pieces that a student will be most likely to use in other subject areas besides English, and while Writing Workshop B may revisit some writing pieces again the class will choose from a variety of pieces that they may never have been exposed to before. The Writing Workshop is predominantly a student-directed class; students choose from a variety of different writing pieces that they wish to learn about and together we create a class syllabus. Students will be responsible for creating lessons in which they teach their classmates about a different writing piece of their choice. And students will create weekly 1) personal goals, 2) Montana Writing Standards goals, and 3) writing goals pertaining to the new writing piece.

Text: Writers INC S Student Handbook for Writing and Learning. Houghton Mifflin, copyright 2001.