Mini-Lessons
5-12 minutes
A variety of biography mentor texts were used during a writing mini-lesson. Students saw how real authors hooked readers by crafting good beginnings in biography picture books.
Teachers create anchor charts with students during mini-lessons. The charts serve as visual reminders for students. Ryan used examples from books the class had read to show the difference between great authors and sloppy authors.
Students read and discussed a poem during a fifth grade mini-lesson. Immerse students in the type of writing they are working on during Writer's Workshop.
Relyn shared examples of personification her students had written. Then, students worked in small groups to come up with more personifications. They shared them with the whole group, and the teacher added them to the anchor chart. All of this was accomplished during a 10 minute mini-lesson.
Independent Writing and Conferring with Students
20-40 minutes
Conferring Schedule
Individual Conferences
Group Conferences
Sharing Time
5-10 minutes
Students share their writing while sitting in the teacher's/author's chair.
Students share their hooks with a partner.
The teacher and student take turns reading a book the student wrote and illustrated during Writer's Workshop. Students have the option to share their book by themselves or with the help of the teacher.
Time Management and Organization Ideas
Scroll down to see a variety of timers.
We saw this stopwatch website during one of our Writer's Workshop field trips and loved it. The stopwatch was used effectively during independent writing and sharing time. Students got right to work and were ready to move on when time was up.
Here's a great SMARTboard visual to see at a glance where students are in the writing process.
Immersion
Fifth graders read and looked at a variety of brochures before researching and using their senses to write their own brochures about a favorite place they have visited.
Sixth graders looked at a number of books by different authors to see how they hooked the reader at the beginning of their picture book biographies. Students discussed which ones they liked and why.
