Today, students learned about how to participate in a writer’s workshop to help improve their work.
1. Pre-Workshop Questions. When students arrived, they chose which piece of writing to revise: either their connection piece or their setting piece. Then, they answered questions 1-3 here: Writer’s Workshop Cover Sheet.
2. The Pact. Since we’ll be talking about some personal experiences in our writings, we made a pact in our writing groups not to speak about our partners’ experiences outside of the classroom. Also, we agreed to encourage our groupmates to write about deeply personal issues that they care about. We will support them. Groups also reviewed the core values of the workshop and decided which value would be most important for them.
3. Example Writing Workshop. We went through the steps of our workshop here: Memoir Workshop Guidelines. I modeled how to converse in a writer’s workshop by reading my own piece and getting feedback from students as if they were my writing group.
4. Writing Workshop. Students followed the steps of the workshop in their writing groups.
HW: Write out your To-Do List (see download in #1). We will revise our pieces in class tomorrow.
ALEXA GARVOILLE 