Writing Workshop

This page is dedicated to the meaningful teaching of writing.  I like to call it Writing for Life: teaching students how to use writing to express themselves to name the truth that they see around them and hopefully to change the world.  I know, I know–it sounds like the young English teacher is highly idealized and completely implausible.  I tell you that it is possible–I have seen it in my classroom with advanced to mediocre students–and you can have it too!

Here are the key factors as  I see them:

1. Students need to write all the time and not see writing as a punishment.  Students’ negative ideas about writing are the most powerful deterrents to a powerful writing program in your classroom.
2. Students need to feel empowered to write what they want to write about and students need to be encouraged when they do write (regardless of the initial quality of the writing).
3. Students need to realize that writing is supposed to be frustrating, and that writing is a process and not ever finished. Unlike other activities in life, good writing never comes easy.  (This concept is one of the most difficult for my students to understand and one of the most critical precepts to having meaningful writing.)