The fundamental model is this:
1. Teacher-led mini lesson (5 - 15 minutes)
2. Student writing time with intermittent teacher conferences (at least 20 minutes)
3. Short student - to - student debrief (2 - 5 minutes)
A recent mini-lesson with my sixth graders was about experimenting with different narrative leads for the memoirs they have been working on. Here's an approximation of how the class period went. Now might be a good time to mention that this is all happening in a one-to-one laptop environment.
1. Review and connect. I begin each writing mini-lesson by reviewing the past few major lessons for the current genre. I keep my own OneNote notebook that mirrors each student's virtual notebook, and project it on the SmartBoard.
For this lesson, I review that we've chosen topics that matter to the writer and that writers help to show this meaning to the reader by purposefully adding their thoughts and feelings into the narrative. I show each notebook page as I briefly review, allowing my students to both hear and see familiar ideas. Then I bridge to the new topic: "Now that you've been working on making your small moment writing meaningful, I thought now would be a good time to teach you about different ways to start your narrative." I make a point, as I learned at TCRWP, to tell kids exactly what I want to teach them that day.
2. Teach the skill or strategy. On this day, I gathered responses from my students about the various functions of the first part of any narrative. I hear and see the footprints of previous excellent teaching. They want their readers to keep reading, they want to show the point of the story and give their readers a reason to go on. They want to hook their readers. I agree, and show four different leads for the same narrative. I have used my own writing and also the writing of Nancie Atwell's students for this purpose. The leads fall into four categories: typical first draft leads, dialogue leads, thoughts leads, and action leads. We read through a series of leads together, discussing the advantages of each. The other part of this skill is the ability and will to revise. I encourage, and sometimes assign, my students to write as many versions of their lead as they can, expriementing with the three major types of leads or some combination thereof. It's barely November, and my sixth graders are still very wary of major revision. I will need to assign this as homework for everyone to give it a fair shot, but they will eventually see the advantages - the superior writing - that comes from the extra work!
3. Writing workshop. There is no sound more satisfying to this teacher than the hushed concentration and regular keyboard tapping that comes with writing time. Students dig into their writing piece at my parting send off: "So, this is one way to experiment with narrative leads. You can now use this skill in today's writing and every time you write. Now, turn to your current piece, and begin your writing by reading." And they do. Me, my little blue stool, and my clipboard circulate and confer. Conferring is an art form, I think. I am still a novice, but get a little better every year. The conferring is the time for me to see students' thoughts in action, to guide them above and beyond, to help them trouble shoot, to give in-the-moment feedback. It is both the hardest and most fulfilling part of the whole process. One practical advantage to the intellectually fulfilling work is that I do so much formative assessment during the production of a piece that my summative assessments don't take very long at all!
4. The debrief. My students need some time to transition out of the writing zone, as I call it. I make sure to allot several minutes for them to confer with their neighbor about "what you wrote and how you wrote it." Last week I wanted to be able to hear what everyone said, so I had them record their conversation in One Note, but there was too much background noise to hear properly on the recordings. I was kind of bummed. I might look into getting mini-microphones. Regardless, the kids both enjoy and need the time to process their work.
5. Deep breath, assess what's next, and move on.
What I am doing with writing workshop is nothing new or revolutionary - I am simply following in many brilliant and large footsteps. What is unusual is the speed of writing and revising allowed by the computer. By the time students get to me, they have had daily computer use for at least two years, so they are already efficient typists. They know how to use Microsoft Word, and this school year we learned together how to use Microsoft OneNote. [OneNote, by the way, has utterly revolutionized my teaching -- by making student document management like it was before computers! The notebooks are organized just like a binder, except that it uses less paper, takes up less space, and is infinitely flexible.] Overall, writing is made easier and more efficient with the use of the computer, but the major negative impact on student writing is in revision. I find that that drafts are much harder to track and students are more likely to throw away a whole paragraph or more in a fit of frustration. I find myself saying quite frequently "No! Don't DELETE it! Just write the new version below!" or "Where is your first draft?" It's a matter of explicitly teaching and reteaching saving and revising strategies, something I am still working to refine.
What I've learned in my third year in a one-to-one laptop program is that good teaching is good teaching, no matter what materials are available. I use the best practices I know, combined with the best technology my school keeps finding, and leave school each day knowing kids have learned and done something new, something that will prepare them for their future in high school and beyond.
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