Writing Background and Chapter 1

The summer has just started and here I am blogging about thoughts for next year, but that is what teachers do, I suppose. Last year was the first year that classroom teachers taught writing in the classroom in my district.  In the past, students went to writing as a daily special.  The writing teacher was the teacher that focused on the correct use of grammar, handwriting, and creating stories with a beginning, middle, and end.  However, last year this changed and classroom teachers were now in charge of conducting a writing class and teaching students all of the essentials for writing stories and informative pieces.  Needless to say, I felt clueless in teaching students writing.  So, last year was a trial-and-error year for teaching writing.  I felt like I tried new techniques and ideas constantly in order to find something that hooked students into writing.

Along with posting about school and ideas for next year during the summer, I have started a class for my Masters with an emphasis on writing, so hopefully I'll feel much more confident in my abilities for teaching writing this coming school year. 

For my class, I am reading "Writing Essentials"by Regie Routman. I began reading the book and immediately connected with many of the questions and thoughts about teaching writing. In my trial-and-error writing class last year, I can confidently say I tried or thought about many of the ideas in chapter 1 at some point in the year. 

One of the important elements that I found in my classroom last year and in the book was the link between reading and writing.  The students need to see the connection between reading and writing stories.  I tried to talk about elements in writing during reading block and vice versa, but I need to do this on a more consistent basis next year.  One of the books that I used at the beginning of the year last year was "Author: A True Story" by Helen Lester.  I wanted students to see that even published authors have many steps to complete in order to publish books.  I think this was a great book to start the year off with, but I will need to come back to it at the beginning of next year. (picture found at www.amazon.com keyword "Author: A True Story")

One last thought as I finished reading my first chapter for class: What do the authors of the book and you all think about the use of writing workshop? Do you use it? Do you teach writing in a different way? I am always looking for new ideas to teach writing!