Chapter 7 of Writing Workshop

Chapter 7: Literature in the Writing Workshop

Let an event in life stir your imagination.  You can begin with the story of Joseph and the drain.

Let your heart and mind guide you to a topic that moves you or you feel strongly about.

How does literature pay a role in writing?

1.        Reading aloud:  Reading aloud is like the glue that joins teacher to students.  We all love to hear stories.   It’s an important bond that we can nourish by reading aloud and often to our students.

2.       The students’ response to your reading will give you a glimpse into their lives and preferences.

Reading to your students will give those who do not get stories told to them at home a chance to experience the wonder of stories.  It will open up a whole new world for them as story writers.

INDEPENDENT READING: 

By middle school, most students have developed a taste for a certain author or type of story they like.  It’s important for students to have a set quite time set aside for such activity.  At our middle school, every Tuesday and Thursday, the last 20 minutes of class is set aside for SURF. 

Every student and teacher takes out a favorite book and begins reading.  It is a ritual that we have in place to encourage all readers to developer their vocabulary and comprehension.

What we have not yet had was a book discussion time.  This is a great way to test a student’s comprehension of what he has read.  This is a practice I will be implementing this year.

The students are asked to tell us about the book they have read.   For younger students, the teacher can read a story and ask the students to ask questions or make comments along the way.

USING LITERATURE DURING A WORKSHOP MINILESSON:

Move time in your story to get to the crucial event.    Use literature to model different perspectives of the same story.  Some literature is intended to not only read for entertainment but to teach a subject to a greater length.

USING Literature in teacher-student conferences:

You can help students connect time  and space by referring them to authors who have done a similar thing in their stories.

MAKING IT WORK:

Is the classroom library stocked with good models for students to work with?

Make a list of book you will read aloud to your class.

Plan some early activities to help you learn about your students as readers. 

Design a system for keeping track of students ‘responses as readers.    There is appendix J as a guide. From Writing workshop by Ralph Fletcher and Joann Portalupi.