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.