Writing Workshop Paper - Essay Example

Writing Workshop A writing workshop is a teaching method that utilizes workshop facilities to enhance development of writing culture among Similar teaching methods have been found effective in reading, where students attend reading workshops in order to improve their reading culture. In this method, students are exposed to different forms of writings and genre, in order to evaluate their proficiency and give appropriate recommendations. In addition, writing workshops allows teachers to meet the needs of individual student according to their weaknesses and strength.

This paper presents a proposal on how to incorporate a writing workshop in the classroom. The writing workshop must have a predictable structure, regular time and a workman-like atmosphere for writing. This implies that activities of a writer’s workshop should have a definite time schedule that is accompanied by a realistic list of expectations and outcomes (Trachsel, 2005). The schedule is analogous to a classroom or a lesson timetable. My writer’s workshop will have a program that is spread across five days and according to available tasks.

The basic steps of the writer’s workshop (WW) will be: 5 days a week 60 minutes per day Mini-lesson Writing time Author’s chair To achieve the objectives, the classroom will require having a special setup that facilitates the writing exercise. Firstly, we will need to label one of the corners of the classroom as the writing workshop. Students will then be required to arrange their chair and desk in a row formant in order to facilitate the exercise. Secondly, the WW will require books, which the student will use for the exercise.

The book should contain relevant material for various genres, which include memoirs, fantasy, tales, and processes. The mini lesson will require 5-15 minutes and it will be the first activity into the WW. Mini lessons utilize charts and papers, which are displayed for the students in the WW. The mini lesson will be essential for drafting of rules, result rubrics, convections and response rules for each of the groups. This will be followed by writing time, which will take about 20-30 minutes. Students are expected to remain silent during the writing period while teacher/ students conference will be in progress.

The last session will be a conference session, which will offer students an opportunity to sign up for a writing conference session. The conference will provide students with an opportunity to get specific and immediate responses from the teacher. In addition, the conference will provide students with an opportunity to gauge the relevance of their questions and the appropriateness of the teacher’s responses. The final or the wrap up session will take 15-20 minutes. During this session, the students will be required to submit their final questions and difficulties experienced during the writing session for review by the teachers.

Writing workshops have several challenges that hinder their success. Some of the challenges are recurring while others are more common than others are. The first problem relates to student’s attitude towards the WW. Negative attitude towards writing workshops is the basis of other opportunistic challenges such as poor writing mechanics and stylistic problems (Hattie, 2011). For instance, run-on sentences are a common challenge that affects most students. In addition, most students have trouble with writing styles and referencing methods.

This has considerable impacts on the credibility of their work. The writer’s workshop intends to achieve writing excellence among students by addressing their immediate challenges while it capitalizes on their potentials. The writing workshop will have a complete five-day program that will address structural and stylistic challenges facing students. In the first day, students will be taught the basic writing style and their respective rules. Students will then be required to reference a sample sentence in each of the leant writing styles (MLA, APA, Harvard and Chicago).

In the second day, the students will be taught common grammatical mistakes and sentence construction that leads to run on sentences. During the third and the fourth days, the students will be required to identify run-on sentences in simple English phrases. The exercise will be completed by creating appropriate sentences to the identified problems. By the end of the fifth day, students should be proficient in identifying run-on sentences and creating appropriate referencing where applicable. Finally, the student will be taught how to present their work.

Appropriate representation will require them to learn how to use basic word processing tools and software. Creation of cover pages, outlines and automatic referencing and outlining tools found in most of the word processing software will be addressed. References Hattie, J. (2011). Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning. New York: Sage. Trachsel, M. (2005). Nurturant ethics and academic ideals: convergence in the writing center. The Writing Center Journal, 16, 24-37.