Getting Started with Choice Writing by Dr. Donovan

Welcome to writers workshop. In these short videos, I offer tutorials on ways to create more choice and voice in your middle and high school writing classes.

Terms

Understanding the independent writing standard

Most states have an independent writing standard. In Oklahoma, it is Standard 8: Students will read and write independently for a variety of purposes and periods of time. For writing, students will write independently, intentionally selecting modes, purposes, and audiences.

It is possible for your entire writing curriculum to be driven by this standard, which can embed Standard 2, which is that students will engage in a recursive process that may include prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.

Whether you are ready to dive into a writing curriculum driven by student choice, want to do more writing workshop in your classroom, or want to just try one mode of writing, these materials will support you even if you’ve never had a course in teaching writers, which very few teacher preparation programs have.

First, let’s clarify a few terms.

Defining Mode, Genre, and Form

Mode means the purpose of the writing broadly, such as narrative (to tell a story), informational (to inform), and argumentative (to explore viewpoints of an issue).

Literary Form means the shape this takes on the page or medium. For example, a narrative could take the form of a short story, play, poem, comic, novella, novel. This means that the piece includes elements of a story (setting, characters, problem, resolution) but in various formats, so they will look different on a page and live in the world differently. A short story will be read; a play will be performed; and a comic will be seen and maybe heard. Narrative can also be used within informational pieces like the story of a person impacted by a problem in a problem-solution informational essay.

Genre is a broader writing term that has to do with how a piece of writing works in the public and how it changes shape over time. For example, a business letter, email, and text message all communicate in an informational mode but include different technologies, audiences, purposes, and “rules” or expectations.

Genre refers to the expectations the public has for how this genre lives in a particular context — think about the rhetorical triangle. A public speech, an op-ed in a newspaper, a YouTube video public service announcement — all of these are advocating for specific issues, so there will be similar features like claims and evidence. However, the way these live in the world varies according to context, e.g., is the newspaper conservative; is the YouTube video for youth or adults; is the event for the speech a school board or national women’s march.

Organizing time to write in your classroom

The writing workshop balances low-stakes writing that will not be graded and process writing which will go through the writing process toward publication. Not everything students write has to be graded or go through drafts.

Set up low-stakes writing by offering 5 minutes for student to write to a prompt or something on their minds. See the the link below called “Gathering Ideas.”

When you are ready for students to take a piece of writing through drafts to publication, set up a calendar that allows students to work on their piece a little bit each day (while you are doing a novel unit, for example) or set aside a full day each week for this.

The links on this page offer tutorials that will be useful to understanding various phases of a writing process that can be adapted for a variety of modes and genres. See the pages specific to each mode/genre for specific steps such as Informational, Personal Narrative, Short Story, Poetry, Comic, Descriptive Paragraph, Argument, and Podcast Interviews.

Routines for the Writers Workshop

Mode-Specific Workshops

For more posts about writing, check these out: Write into Your Life’s Arguments (a Personal Argument Essay); Let Your Students Teach the Class; Open Mic in Writers’ Workshop; Easing into writing poetry and uncovering the power of an open mic; Place-Based Writing: Feeling Like They Belong and Proving It by Jolie Hicks; 5 Routines for a Meaningful Final Grade Conference; A learning conference: It is way better than talking about grades.; What do I say exactly in these reading conferences? Four techniques to engage inferences.

Establishing a routine

Here is the template to set up the daily routine.

Gathering ideas from our lives

Choosing how and why with genre and mode

Speaking & listening to understand how craft lives

Here is a link to the listening sheet.

Revising with peers in the peer conference

Handout for peer conferring.

Publication party

Handout for commenting with care.

Teaching grammar as craft

Grading with standards