Making the most of our writing time

By Joy Harrison

The last two chapters helped fill in all of the gaps that I had been wondering about while reading the beginning of the work. They brought everything together and made me feel more comfortable with the structure and purpose of writing conferences. I especially enjoyed the chapter on mini-lessons, because sometimes this is the hardest part of teaching writing -- making sure that the mini-lessons are indeed mini, and that they are contextualized and intentional so that students can relate to them and grow because of them. Sometimes I feel like the planning of mini-lessons is a mystery because I'm never quite sure what I should be doing/saying so that I can really teach to my students' intentions. Chapter 5 demystified the structure and components of effective mini-lessons, so I feel more comfortable leading them during Writer's Workshop.

I love the advice that Anderson gives to start off our mini-lesson with noticing: "In the first part of the mini-lesson, we let students know what we've noticed about them as writers, and what we're going to teach them to help them be better writers" (144). I have done this without even thinking about it but I think that I need to be more intentional about it. I also have to make sure that I'm not just saying "we're working on editing because I realized that no one truly knows what editing is in this classroom." Not that I've said exactly that to my students, but sometimes my noticing is framed as somewhat negative. Now of course I need to be responsive to my students' needs but the noticing part of my mini-lesson should not be discouraging.

I rarely plan the "have-a-go" (p. 147) part of the conference and I think this is what is missing in my mini-lessons. I remember writing in one of my daily connections about feeling frustrated that my students are not actually doing any of the things that I have been teaching them in my mini-lessons. I have struggled empowering my students to practice and implement the skills that I teach during my writing mini-lessons. Anderson gives some very practical and helpful solutions to this problem -- the "have-a-go" and the link to the students' independent writing. These are two important steps that I am missing and without them, my mini-lessons will be useless.

Chapter 6 helped me revisit the structure of my mini-lessons. When I first started doing writing conferences, I had students come to my small table, and I recorded conferences notes in my binder. I thought it was going fairly well, especially because I felt as though my note-taking strategy was helping me build upon the previous time that I had worked with that child, but after reading Anderson's ideas about positionality and the importance of coming to the writer instead of the writer coming to me, everything changed. One of the downfalls of having students come to me was that I was majorly interrupting their writing, the conferences were going too long, and I wasn't able to see enough students during my writing time. A few weeks ago, I started holding conferences around the room. I bought a conferring chair at Ikea (I'm serious -- it's a little stool that's very portable) so that I can walk around the room and sit down next to a child to get on their level. I have been able to meet with 6-10 people in one Writer's Workshop, which is so much better than before when I was only able to see 3-4 students a day. My students and I are still getting used to this new structure, so I am excited about getting to see more of my writers each day which will hopefully lead to their growth. One of my other goals is for my students to have peer conferences, but we're not there yet.

The last chapter helped remind me of the things that I can do to make sure that my writers are making the most of their writing time. I have always wanted my students to get into a "writing zone" where they are not distracted and they can work independently without me giving them a reminder every 5 minutes. I have recently started playing classical music in our Writer's Workshop -- it helps me focus (hopefully it helps the students too -- most of my students have said that they like it) and it also helps keep the tone very calm and serene. I like the idea in Chapter 7 about there being "no talking, no walking time" (p. 173)  for the first few minutes of independent writing. I think that starting off the independent writing time with the right tone is so important. When students get up to go the bathroom or sharpen their pencil in those first few minutes, it definitely affects the tone and flow of the writing time. I want my students to understand that independent writing time is not about just staring at your Writer's Notebook and waiting for Ms. Harrison to confer with me -- I want my students to take responsibility for their writing and be motivated to write independently. In this chapter I also enjoyed the reminders that students need to be "invested" in their writing if they are expected to continually and independently write during Writer's Workshop (p. 178). I want my students to be publishing more frequently (but not too frequently) so that they have a sense of purpose for their writing. Sharing and celebrating is an invaluable part of Writer's Workshop -- without this, students will start to dislike writing and will not grow as writers.

I'm so glad that we read this book together. It was so helpful and practical. Thank you all for challenging me as a writing teacher! My writing instruction has improved so much from last year.