workshop model again...

Back to the writer’s workshop model.  We went to another training session and this one was awful!  Our teacher got stuck on everyone reporting back off of a sngle confrernce and we learned nothing new.  If I am to learn a new way of teaching, explain it to me and teach me how to teach writing.  Not just observe another teacher.  Frustrating day but it brought up more questions than answers for me yet again…

How can we have a writing series that has the same lessons for all K-2 students?  How they are appropriate for K’s and 2’s?  So in other words we as second grade teachers have to supplement what we are doing so we can teach our students.  What happens in two years when we get the K’s that have been taught this in K, In 1 and then they want me to repeat the same lessons again in 2?  I don’t think so…so how do other second grade teachers teach writing with writer’s workshop or units of study?  I was excited to be trained in units of study but am now struggling….any suggestions or ideas to help me get back on track?

art and writing?

What do you think about a writing project….for example, my students made fall tress (tear art) and then had to write sentences about their tree.  I gave students a certain number of sentences to write about their tree and we edited their sentences before they rewrote them in their best handwriting and we hung them in the hallway.  Now, that activity teaches part of the writing process but it isn’t really a narrative writing but is there still a benefit to doing these projects?  It allows students to be creative, learn about editing, and continue to feel like writers.  It allowed publishing in a controlled way that is easy to present and hang in the hallway for everyone to see…so what’s important about writing?  Publishing?  The process?  Being creative? Here’s a picture or two what we’ve been working on.