Recipe for Culinary Conferencing

Cook time:  2-7 minutes

Temperature: Cool and comfortable classroom

Serves: Approximately 22 hungry minds

Ingredients:

1 Teacher

1 Student

1 Piece of Writing

2 Somewhere’s to Sit

A fistful of knowledge (pg 164)

Record Keeping Materials

Directions:

Preparation time: At least one class period for writing for child. Teacher should sift one fistful of knowledge down to deliberate teaching idea, use only freshest ingredients

Combine teacher and student with one piece of writing at 2 somewhere’s to sit. Allow to simmer to low boil (ideas).

Increase heat to direct instruction mode, stir occasionally with open ended questions for student.

Occasionally monitor reason for teaching objective.

Serve hot to friends and family, no holding back!!!

"I don't want my body to be a distraction from my talent or my brain." ~Shania Twain

  


      Distractions, we know as teachers that our students will face so many distractions during a school day, because lets face it, so will we. The way we handle these distractions is what makes us or breaks us. Ray does a great job of reassuring me with ways to handle distractions during Writing Workshop. One thing Ray said that really struck me is that we need to have faith in our students to stay engaged while working for longer periods of time. She brings up the fact that when students are all working on a uniformed task like a worksheet, we never second guess if they are staying on task but we do when we allow them to have the freedom to choose what interests them. Why is this? Shouldn't the opposite be true? Again, I think it goes back to having faith that our students want to learn and that they are interested in things and are willing to explore and put in the time.
     One key ingredient to having a successful Writing Workshop is the space that you allow your students to use. I can remember back when I was in elementary school I can remember teachers having lofts in their classrooms and how exciting it was to get to use them to do your work. So having these experiences makes me appreciate the use of different classroom spaces. At the same time I am nervous about using couches or bean bags in my classroom because how can we fairly determine when and what students get to use them? Ray brings up a great point by saying that you could let the students themselves set up some sort of system to determine who works best in what spots and what type of rotation schedule will be used.
     Chapter 8 scared me a little. Writing Workshops will indeed be hectic and challenging. The key is to have them planned out enough to understand how to deal with them when they veer in a different direction then what was originally planned. I love how Ray talks about how terrible Writing Workshop "kits" are. Isn't the great thing about Writing Workshops the freedom to choose what you want to write about, so by using kits we are secretly limiting our students to what WE want them to write about. Again, bringing this time meant for them back to meet Our standards as well as the schools. There are ways to have students follow what you would like them to do, but simply letting students pick from a few topics is not the way. "Kits" are an easy way out and as teachers it's not our job to short our students just because it takes less effort on our part.

Conferencing

     The dreaded student teacher interaction. When I think back to my experiences with conferencing, I remember my teachers telling me what I needed to work on, making me feel inadequate. This is not the type of conferencing that Ray discusses. This should be a productive and useful tool for both teacher and student. Its an open ended conversation for the teacher to find out where students strengths are and what needs work, not simply by telling students what they are doing wrong but by prompting questions so that students can evaluate their own work. I think that this is the key to holding a successful conference. Also, Ray puts such an importance upon conferencing that the students really respect it. Ray mentions how important the way we ask questions can be. Even a small change of a sentence can change a one worded answer into an explanation. Going even further in depth, Ray attempts to help teach us, wanna be teachers, how to and how important the right question is. I feel as if I have never had an issue with posing meaningful questions that expect insightful comments but it is nice to have a few guide lines to fall back on.

Writing to Learn or Learning to Write?

     It's comforting to realize that I am not alone when I say I did not receive good writing instruction for the majority of my school years. It's actually the other way around. Good writing instruction is hard to come by. But why? My guess is that teachers aren't aware of all of the strategies that Ray presents in her book. Five categories, that's how Ray helps her students to understand what the layers of teaching a writing workshop will be:

1. how we set up the room to teach (environment)
2. how we live in that room (demonstration)
3. what we teach in focus lessons and conferences (direct instruction)
4. what investigations we plan (inquiry)
5. what we require as writing homework (the potential of the world)

     Not only should our students understand these five ways of thinking about learning but we as teachers should understand them to create an active learning space. Reading through the chapters, I can't help but think back to my experience as a young student. I see how beneficial a good writing workshop can be and I know that I did not partake in a classroom that had this. I almost feel as if I was cheated out of experiences and an appreciation for literature and writing. Sure, I enjoy reading and writing now, that has come from within myself but a little outside help and motivation would have been nice. This only makes me realize how important this will be when I am designing my own classroom. It will be my job and my most important goal to create a dynamic learning environment for my students.

As Ray states, "Everything we do in our writing workshops, every move me make, teaches students."

Concrete Poem

     Today in my LLED 4120 class we were asked to create a Concrete Poem to illustrate what "Writing Workshop" is. The pencil represents characteristics of an unsuccessful writing workshop and the writing represents important characteristics of a successful writing workshop. 

Writing Workshop Initial Thoughts

     I'm always apprehensive to start a new textbook. They seem so boring and daunting to read and write responses on, especially since I have been doing so since the beginning of time, or so it feels like. But when I opened this book I immediately was comforted by the familiar voice of conversation. Katie Wood Ray is just like any other teacher trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work in a classroom. It's also nice to feel like I have a partner trying to investigate the scary task of Writing Workshops. To quote Ray, "The most important goal is that (her) students write with purpose and intention first-to enrich their lives in significant ways-and that out of this they learn to write well."This is what gets lost in translation I feel. With such strict standards placed upon our students and ourselves, we lose sight of the most important goal. It is not simply to have our students learn how to write, it is to instill in them a sense of pride and need to write. 

     Since this is my last semester before student teaching, I have been placed in a third grade classroom two days a week. I can see a stark contrast between my classroom and the way an affective writing workshop plays out. The students in my classroom seem to have no respect for writing, I understand that they are third graders and I'm sure that when I was that age I had a lack of interest in writing as well,  but something has changed inside of me since then and I couldn't imagine having a classroom of my own where writing was thrown to the curb. I'm only 5 chapters in to this book and I can already tell it will have a major impact on the way I implement strategies to creating effective workshops. The main component that I have taken away so far have been the essential characteristics of writing workshops, which are...

1. Choices about content

2. Time for writing

3. Teaching

4. Talking

5. Periods of focused study

6. Publication rituals

7. High expectations and safety 

8. Structured management

     In my opinion this should be used as a checklist and if you can check all of these characteristics off, then you should have one heck of a successful writing workshop.