Chapters 9 10 & 13*

I think that chapter 9 was very interesting. I would have never thought of the different ways to teach and prepare for reading workshop would have been some of these. These ideas are great ways to use in my reading workshop as a teacher. It explains that we as teachers need to no only give the students writing and make them write but we do as well. I never thought and understood why this was such a big deal, but after reading this, I see. The students are looking as us as role models and I know as a student that I would not want to do something that others didn't have too. It also talks about focus lessons. I really was a little confused on what exactly this is and how it is used in classrooms. Teachers explains in great detail of how they expect and want their writing workshop and classroom to be ran is important to state very early on in the school year. I enjoyed reading this chapter because it gave great examples and real life situations and classroom experiences in it.

Chapter 10, The Nature of Workshop Curriculum was also complex but informational in my opinion. The five things that should be taught in a writing workshop are really detailed and helpful to know. Its important to know that many of the students will be used to and it will come easy to them because this is part of their daily routine in school to write. Letting students know and feel that we know what and how they are doing is crucial. I think they should have an understanding and sense that we as teachers care about what, how, and why they feel and write about what they do. We have all had to do this same kind of thing in our younger years.

As I read chapter 13, Focus Lesson: Whole-Class Teaching in the Writing Workshop, things started to make more sense to me and all come together. This helped me understand and grasp a better understanding of what an actually focus lesson was. Having students be brought back together after their workshop has began is important. I know in my mentors classroom, he never lets or give the students the opportunity to drift away or pull apart. I think that this is a great idea and way of running a classroom so the students will always feel connected and involved in each other writings. As a teacher, I will always ask myself before I begin and when I wrap up if this is what my lesson was suppose to be about and did my students understand the material that I taught them. Teachers should also make sure that their students are learning and involved in your lesson, or there is no need in wasting your time if no one cares what you are talking about. Being able to ask yourself "what am or was I meaning to teach" and you can answer that question, then I think that you have a successful lesson. This gave me some great ways and ideas of how to have a good focus lesson for my students.

These were really interesting chapters and information that I read. There were many helpful and useful tips that I will use in my classroom and Writing Workshop when I have my own class. I have never seen a point or why writing workshop is required but after reading these chapters, I have a different view on this subject.

Writing Workshop

My thought on writing workshop in a classroom:

When I first began to read this book, I did not think that I would enjoy reading it.  When reading this, I could really relate to what the author was saying and trying to explain. I was in a classroom last semester that my mentor teacher would do reading workshop everyday at the same time. The students in the class really dreaded doing this and having to read and write. My mentor would make the children read a book, not of their choice, during reading workshop and then write about the book that they may not even be interested in. This book gave me a new outlook and perspective on writing works and ways to do this in my classroom. Some of the students in class did actually like doing this but the majority didn't. I think that one of the main reasons that they didn't was because they were not able to talk at all unless you were talking with an adult in the class about your writing. While I was observing, I noticed that some of the students would be on the same piece for several weeks without adding or editing anything at all on their work. Also, the students not being able to choose what they write about was definitely a major issue. I am glad that I got to experience this was of doing writing work shop in one of the classrooms that I have been in so that I will be able to learn and make changes when I do this on my own with my students. I have never thought that about not giving the class a prompt subject because all I have ever known was that the students are tested on this with random subjects so this is how they should learn. I now disagree with this because I know if I were a student having to do this, I would not write my best if it was not about something that interest me. Therefore, I would not be very prepared for my test if every subject was not my choice and I knew that I never tried while writing. I strongly believe that the more you write the better writer you become. This goes to show you that students will do free writes and try and want to write more if its something that they enjoy and are interested in. While the teacher should edit the students work throughout the day or week, each student should and definitely will have mistakes in their paper and they will realize that everyone could always use more help from others and always edit their papers.
      I think that every teacher should use writing workshop in their classrooms. I do not think that teachers want to use this because they say it is no something that is structured and rules to this workshop. I think that this outlook is just a personal based opinion. Something like writing workshop is whatever you as a teacher wants to make it be. You as a teacher can choose how you want to teach and ways you want your students to write. Personally, I think that the students should be allowed to write whatever they want as long as it is written correctly and using the things that they have learned about writing. The students would always come to the carpet and tell the class what they have been writing about and some of the stories that they students were writing about were no where near correct. If this were one of my students in this situation, I would write their name down and make sure that I spent time with them correcting and helping them edit their paper the next time we did writing workshop. I would ask the other students what the main idea, topic sentence, and other questions along this line about their classmate that shared their writing to make sure that everyone sees these important things that have to be included in a piece of writing.
      Being in a classroom with students who did not like writing workshop and reading this, I now see that not all students and even classes hate this. I think that teachers that are required to teach this and have writing workshop part of their lesson make their students not enjoy it as well. Writing workshop may be a very helpful or very horrible thing for students.  If the teacher makes the workshop fun and open-minded I think that the majority of the class if not all would have a good outlook and enjoy and learn to love to write in not only writing workshop but in their free time as well.