Reading and Writing Workshop Components
As you plan the components of your workshop (crafting, composing, reflecting), consider the following questions:
Crafting (mini-lesson)
How will you make the lesson objectives clear to students?
What are we doing?
Why are we doing it? (How this helps us as readers/writers?)
How will we know when we’ve done it well?
How will you teach the crafting session (model, share lit, child’s writing, etc)?
What materials will children set at their reading/writing spots or bring to the meeting area?
How will you check for understanding, allow for children to try it on the rug, or give children support in making sense of the lesson?
Say Something Partners
Accountable Talk
“Have-a-go” at it in the meeting area
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Composing (conferences & invitational groups)
How will you send students off to work?
Quick send-off (“Off you go!”)
Watching clusters go off, commenting on what they’re doing
Clusters doing a certain type of work leave (“If you are working on revising today, get going.”)
Not sure of the work? Confused? Stay & we’ll work on it?
Transitions
Where will they go? (Designated spots)
What will they do once they sit down?
What do you do during the transition?
- When will you be available for conferences?
- Will you watch as they settle in?
Conferences & Invitational Groups (while whole group is working)
How will you organize your conferences (or invitational groups)?
How will you communicate to students with whom you are not meeting, your expectations for their independent or partner work?
- How will you respond to the child who interrupts your conference or invitational group?
- Will there be some way for children who need help to request and have a meeting with you, separate from your planned conferences?
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Reflecting Session
What’s your objective?
Do you want to share work that solidifies the learning in which the whole group was just engaged?
Did you plan your share so that it is for the good of the whole group, not just for the good of the child sharing?
Are you trying to build community by making as much of the student work public as is possible?
How will children not sharing participate in the share?
Will you model various ways of responding?
- praise the attempt or successful use of a taught (or “child generated”) strategy,
- question the child’s process, future plans, ideas about how this will be useful to her as a reader/writer,
- suggest other strategies or behaviors, ways to continue the work, next steps, etc, and
- probe deeper into what is being shared in order to push the child to expand his/her thinking.
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