Workshop Wednesday: Setting Up Your Writer's Workshop

For today's post, I'm linking up with Jivey for Workshop Wednesday!  I love writer's workshop because it can be so individually tailored to your students' needs.  This also means that there is a lot of prep work on the part of the teacher to make sure all of the parts of the workshop flow well together.

One thing that you definitely want to think about it how you have students sign up for conferences.  You can post a calendar in your writing space and have students sign on the day they want to meet with you.

Image Credit: Pulaski's 5/Cafe: Pictures

Or you might set a schedule of conferences so your students know when they will be able to talk to your about their writing.  You'll need a routine for sudden emergencies and where students can find help if it isn't their conference day but they need help.  You'll also want to keep in mind that struggling writers will need more than one conference per week in order to grow.  I've had many students that needed some type of check in DAILY in order to be productive.  For those students, I'd check their progress by initialing in the margin of their writing and I'd tell them the minimum I expected them to write that day and then I'd initial again at the end of the workshop.

Photo Credit: Flamingo Fabulous in Second Grade
Clothes pins and clip charts are another popular way of having students let you know they need a conference.  I don't use this method just because I use a clip chart for behavior and I'd rather save the phrase "clip up" for recognizing good behavior.  But I've seen some VERY cute clip charts out there!

For myself, I like simple.  I use my easel and write CONFERENCES at the top and number from 1-4.  After I close the mini lesson, I tell students that they can sign up for a conference next to a number.  

There is my easel. It was decorated by my (then) three year old last summer.

Full disclosure: I've had issues with this method every year.

I'll say something like "so that's what I'd like you to work on in your writing" and inevitably, I will have students RACE, like Olympic style sprint for the gold, to the easel.  Enthusiastic writers?  Not really.  By racing to the board, they show me that they have NO intention of practicing whatever I taught during the mini lesson.  And that's not cool.  I need them to work for a few minutes on what every skill or style lesson I presented so I can meander through the room and get some struggling readers started.

So what can you do about this?  Here's what worked for me.  I sit with the student that won the race and I ask him or her to show me whatever it is I taught during the mini lesson.  90% of them time, it isn't evident in their writing, so I'll say something like "I'm disappointed that you didn't try xyz in your writing.  It doesn't seem like you are ready for a writing conference.  You can sign up again when you've done xyz."  Then I'll erase their name from the easel and talk to the next person.  I'll probably end up saying the same thing for several days to different students, but usually by  the end of the first project, everyone will understand that conferences come AFTER you apply the mini lesson.

How do you manage your writing conferences?  Be sure to join the linky! 

Writing Recipe Poems for Mother's Day

I've tried writing recipe poems every year with every one of my classes.  Each year, I've had the same problem: students who are unfamiliar with how recipes are written do not have the vocabulary necessary to craft the poem!

This year, I decided to try something new.  I wanted my students to write sweet poems for their mothers!  I provided my {some of my} students with words you would find in a recipe: saute, mix, chop, dice, fry, grill, etc.  I also gave them common kitchen measurements.  And for my most struggling students, I gave them adjectives they might use to describe their mothers. 

With the assistance of a dictionary (hey, I'm not doing all of their work!), students filled in their brainstorm sheet with great words such as poise, charm and faith.  SO much better than explaining for the hundredth time that someone who is caring is not careful!

I modeled a poem for the students and helped them find the pattern of kitchen verb + measurement + adjective to create their poems.

Students published on recipe themed paper with cute line art from Scrappin Doodles!  Tomorrow we will wrap the recipe and a oven mitt, kitchen towel or pot holder!  (Thank you, Dollar Tree!)

You can check out the product in my TpT store.  There are lots of different options for the publishing paper - wide rule, primary lines and "college" rule.  There are also boy and girl versions of the paper. There are also blank papers if you have students who want to write a Happy Grandmother's Day Poem or a Father's Day Recipe Poem!

What, if anything, are you doing to celebrate Mother's Day with your students?

Workshop Wednesday: Favorite Writing Mini Lesson

I'm linking up with Ideas by Jivey for another installment of Workshop Wednesday!  This week's topic:  Favorite Writing Mini Lessons.  Since we have been ENTRENCHED in testing this week (one more day of ELA to go!), I'm pretty happy to think back to some of the lessons I've taught this year.  My favorite unit to teach is always narrative and this year, I'm really proud of the lessons I taught for writing leads.

When I taught narrative this year, I asked my students to write realistic fiction.  I find it's easiest for them if they think of something that happened to them but fictionalize it slightly by changing the traits of the main character or the outcome of the conflict.  Once they have the story idea all mapped out, they are ready to draft, right?
Ha. Never.
How often do you hear "I don't know how to start!" ?  That phrase drives me batty!  So this year, I spent a full day trying out different openings.  I didn't introduce this lesson as drafting, I just told my kids that we were going to try on a few different openings and then share.  I put this image up on the SMARTboard and we discussed each of the possible openings we could use (my story was about a girl who runs a race, just barely loses, then practices and wins the next race).

Next, I gave students their own lead sheet to complete.  It was just a half sheet of paper, so it wasn't intimidating at all.

From this student, you can see that he borrowed my first opening pretty heavily, but the rest of the work was authentic.  I kind of love "Issaiah {held} the bat so hard {that} his hand {hurt}."

This student wrote "When Tania put her feet on the ocean, she felt like she was going to drown and the creepy sea creatures were going to pull her down and eat her."  Vivid, no?

The kids shared their possible openings with each other and the next day were ready to draft.  Instead of struggling with what to write, I modeled how I could use my favorite opening to begin my story. 

 If you want to grab my model leads, the student hand out, my model opening paragraph and a rubric for the opening, click HERE!

What was your favorite mini lesson this year?  Be sure to link up with Ideas by Jivey to share!  And while you are there, be sure to enter her 300 Follower Giveaway!