Sit

in a
mixe
3,4,5 d
grou
p.

Celebration!
Kicking off Units of Study
Grades 3-5: Launching the Writing Workshop- Unit 1
Wednesday, October 14: 3:15-4:30
Monday, October 19, 2009
 Celebrating The Work... 20 min
3:15-3:35 pm

✤ Teacher Work: ✤ Student Work:

Charts! Student Notebooks!

Teacher Notebooks! Discovery Drafts!

Anecdotal Notes! Personal Narratives!

Rubrics! WT Rep: Please record notes of your

10 minute “How’s It Going?”
**Carpeted Walls! discussion with your mixed team.

Monday, October 19, 2009

 Celebrating Student Work- Protocol
Please move so you are sitting with
your grade level team.

✤ Writing Notebooks-
Celebrating Student Learning
20 min
3:35-3:55 pm

Monday, October 19, 2009

 We Must Model Our Own Writing!

“Teachers of writing who have been soldiers

themselves, engaged in a writing battle, must be
able to empathize more closely with the
comrades in their classroom than teachers who
are merely war correspondents at the hotel bar,
as it were, watching the battle from a safe
distance, declining to get in there themselves
and write. (p. 11- Radical Reflections by Mem
Fox)
Monday, October 19, 2009
 Celebrating Charts as Teaching and Learning Tools
8 min, 3:55-4:03 pm

✤ Charting allows students to see YOU model the action

of writing.
✤ Charting and posting those charts provides a trail of
the work which is easy for our learners to follow.
✤ A chart is not a poster.
✤ 2 types of charts in WW: Anchor charts/”Work” charts
✤ Chart share...
Monday, October 19, 2009
 Preparing for what’s next... 22 min
4:03-4:25 pm

✤ Jen to overview Unit 2: Raising the Quality of Narrative Writing

✤ Teams time to begin to discuss:

✓ unit focus

✓ lessons/charting/anchor and mentor texts

✓ assessment

✓ calendar/pace

✓ final product expectations and celebration format options

✓ coaching sign-ups
Monday, October 19, 2009
 “Teamwork”- I’ll send this in an email...
1. Please complete the quick poll on my blog “What is the hardest switch to make when moving to the
workshop approach?”

2. Teams need to discuss and begin to make changes to Unit 1. These changes can include pacing (modify
the calendar), assessment targets, culling and copying student samples from your grade to use in place
of the NYC samples, anchor texts, etc. One copy of these changes need to be give to each GL writing
team rep to bring to our next WT meeting... (if possible!)

3. Together, please brainstorm 3-5 training ideas for me to work on with TAs in the area of writing
workshop.
2 min
Other Teaming Opportunities: 4:25-4:30 pm
๏ Read and discuss the Professional Reading: Chapter 13- “Focus Lessons: Whole Class
Teaching in the Writing Workshop” by Katie Wood Ray (from: The Writing Workshop)

We will CELEBRATE Unit 2 in November. Date TBD.

Monday, October 19, 2009