A closer look at writer's workshop!

Awhile back I posed the question on my Facebook…what kind of topics would you like me to post about? Writer’s workshop and Lucy Calkins especially were by far most requested! I shared earlier in the school year that it wasn’t like I didn’t “like” writing in my previous years, but this year I just fell in LOVE with teaching writing! Lucy Calkins was a big part of that. Now, before I start rambling more about writing…please know I am not paid or endorsed or given anything etc etc etc from the Lucy Calkins entourage. These are just my thoughts on the program!

I know that I have a lot of first grade readers as well so I for sure wanted to provide you more insight on Lucy Calkins in first grade! So, I teamed up with one of my first grade teachers, Ashley Klein! We will start with her……

First Grade Writing with Lucy Calkins

Do
you want your students to LOVE writing and write stories that will blow you
away? That’s just what the Lucy Calkins
writing units will do! I am amazed at
what my 1st
grade students are capable of writing as they learn new author craft moves and
techniques.

In
my classroom, the students all have a red writing folder with a green (Still Working) label on the front pocket and a
red (Finished and Ready to Share) label on the back pocket. This is an excellent way to organize student
work, especially when we get to the big informative unit and they are collecting
research and writing rough drafts.

As
the 1st
grade team paced out the writing lessons, we found that most lessons are very
“meaty” and need two days to teach.
Therefore, on the first day, we teach the lesson, let the students
write, then have them come back and share with their partner. On the second day, we teach the mid-workshop
lesson and the lesson integrated into the share session, let the students
write, then share with a partner or whole group.

The
narrative writing unit helps students successfully plan their writing and
encourages them to make their characters talk, move, and show feeling while
also adding specific details to their illustrations. I LOVE this unit!! It is amazing to see how their writing
changes from the beginning of the unit to the end of the unit. I often found myself asking the students to
“show me how they moved, I’m having trouble picturing it” to get the students
to write using more detail.

As we
learned about different author craft moves, I would ask the students to share
their writing with their partner to see where they could add an author craft
move. As I was “eavesdropping” on many
conversations, I heard “I’m having trouble picturing how you walked to the
concession stand.” The student quickly
responded by stating that he speed walked to the concession stand so he would
not miss the race because they were about to start. I LOVE hearing them read their writing and
help each other through the revision process.

During
the informative writing unit, students learn how to organize information into
chapters within their story booklet and conduct research. This is a very challenging concept for 1st graders to understand and
definitely takes A LOT of teaching and re-teaching. As the unit begins, students are instructed
to pick a topic they know a lot about and write a research report. Some students are very successful with
this. However, as we all know some students say they know a
lot about something, but they really don’t.
It is very challenging for students to write a report about a topic they
know very little about.

Therefore, we
decided to change this unit up a bit and give the students a research topic,
such as jellyfish, and give them research materials (booklets, diagrams, and videos). This definitely helped the students learn how
to collect research, underline/highlight important information, and organize to
write an informative report. We used
this along with teaching the
informative unit
session.

As I was teaching this unit
and looking ahead, I also noticed writing introductions and conclusions is a
very short unit towards the end of the writing unit. Therefore, I decided to teach my students how
to write introductions by teaching a lesson on “How to Hook Your Reader” before
we got too deep into the informative writing unit. The students really caught on to this and
loved beginning their reports with sound effects and questions to “hook” the
reader into reading their story.

It’s time for 2nd semester and the Opinion unit to begin! I am very anxious to see how students persuasive writing blooms throughout the unit! We will also do Part 2 of Narrative writing! Below are some of our anchor charts!

Narrative anchor charts…

Informative anchor charts…

I wasn’t quite sure where to start this post or what to share with you when it came to writer’s workshop in my classroom! There is so much that goes into writer’s workshop that as I thought about it I came to the conclusion that writing is not cut and dry…I think that is why so many of us give ourselves a hard time about writing instruction in our classrooms. We know where we want the kids to be and we know we are seeing improvement….but it’s so hard to see an immediate transformation. Writing progression is slow and steady! I think that is why any one curriculum, model, pacing, etc etc will never work perfectly for a classroom! As teachers we know that and make the necessary adjustments for our kiddos!

In my classroom we have adopted the Lucy Calkin’s Units of Study this year which I do LOVE! I’ve never enjoyed writing as much as I do this year annnnnd even better my students love writing time in general and enjoy writing stories! I call them writers and they buy into that more than anything! If you haven’t heard about the units or if you have but would like to see a sample you can download a free sampler HERE. The units do require a lot of reading on our part…but it’s really the first time I’ve read good and meaningful “literature” on primary writing! I mentioned before that I don’t like to read from the teacher’s manual, but I also don’t want to miss out on the great phrasing she says so I will will type up bullet points to use during my lessons! This has helped with the pressure of not forgetting anything worth sharing during the lesson!
I like to set the “mood” for writing. Everyday we have the same routines…they are nothing spectacular, but they are solid in that the students know them and remind me when I forget one! Of course that never happens 😉 Just a couple basics…lights off and quiet music {see below}.

Before leaving the carpet I rephrase our purpose for writing that day, but also go over our class writing goals! Those goals change depending on our purpose for writing and/or a writing mini lesson we’ve had. Usually they include a focus on mechanics {spacing, small vs. big letters, punctuation, capitalization}, persevering {telling more, filling our papers, adding important details}, having our pictures match our words, and making sure our friends can read our story. Of course we don’t talk about all of those in one day, but throughout the week I will choose 2-3 of those that I write on the board before I dismiss students to their tables. I will hear the kids buzzing around the room how they met one of the goals because they filled their papers, etc.
You can see below a snap shot of the kiddos hard at it during writing….

I purchased this Kagan Music for the Mind Reading and Writing CD at the beginning of hte year and it’s great! I will sometimes turn on something smoothing from Youtube, but this is the easiest for me!

I also shared a couple of times this year but might as well not leave on this post….my writing folders! Each of my kiddos have writing folders! I set these up over the summer and they were one of those few summer ideas that actually work out IRL! Ha! Anyway, I keep extra writing paper, current writings, alphabet chart, and sight word list in the kiddos’ folders.

You can download these sight word lists directly below!

We are currently between two consecutive narrative units and our first informational unit! We will start informational writing after we return from MLK day. We’ve welcomed this little break in between with reviewing some important narrative concepts!

I think that at this stage it is A LOT of work to just write period…not even considering adding in the sequential words, adding matching pictures, and telling who was there! However, just because it is hard…I don’t think we should not teach it. We are good at this…we teach it to those that understand and make it work for those that are not at that level yet! Before Christmas break we were working really hard on all of those parts; an opening, first, next, lastly, and a reaction. However, after break we took the time to do a whole-class story, then the kids were able to break away for their own. I made these “organizers” to help them collect their thoughts!

Last week we also hit the mechanics hard and discussed what makes our writing easy to read! I know I said this before so just ignore, but I’ve had the best success this year in students understanding mechanics by me modeling it the WRONG way. I know…….horrible of me, but it has worked! They c.r.a.c.k. up laughing when they see me writing my sentences allsmushedtogetherlikethis. They find it even more hilarious when I write my words without vowels and go back to read my sentence….. My mm lks t mk ck. My… /m/ /m…./ l/ /k/ s/… yeah they think that is funny, but when I tell them I’ve seen some of them make that oopsie they are appalled! We know it….that kids learn by example, yet we forget sometimes to put it into kid terms! I can talk a lot about punctuation….but when I read a sentence without a period and hold the last word for 2 minutes they get it….we HAVE to have a period!

With Lucy Calkins students write on topics of their choice so we found that being five and six, kids still need a little guidance on topics. Never fails if I write about Disney World they all seemed have been there with me… bless their hearts! Making topic posters is a great idea!

What is a true story? Explicit steps to explain…

Writing can be fun too…

Next week we will start out next unit in informational writing! I whipped this up a couple of weeks ago and will be placing them into our work on writings after we begin the unit! You can download this freebie by clicking below!

I tried but I am positive I have missed something important you would like to know! If so please comment below or email me at taradc87@hotmail.com. Have a great week!

Comments

Shauna says

January 13, 2015 at 3:20 pm

Thank you for such an informative post. I have the Lucy Calkins books and have even taken a 5 day workshop on the books but have struggled with getting this started. I started this year and went back to my old way of writing which is to write in a stapled notebook. What I struggle with is the writing folder. Most of my students get a new piece of paper every day without finishing their current piece, or they write a few words and say they are done and get a new piece without being monitored. They are not following the "when you are done, you've just begun" and adding more detail. I end up with this huge mess of papers in their folders and they cannot remember what they wrote when it is time to conference with them. I cannot conference with every child each day or this problem would be solved. When some are finished, I am busy conferencing with others. Do you have suggestions on what to do to avoid this huge mess? Also, how do you decide what papers to keep and what ones to send home? I try to save some for a portfolio, but it is nice to show progress. I currently have a thick folder for each student with lots of unfinished papers.

- Anonymous says
  
  January 15, 2015 at 2:17 am
  
  Hi there Shauna! I think as teachers we are good about making things work! I don't always have the kids keep all of their writings in their folders. If it's a piece that we are not going to work on again they either take them home or I collect them to save. If we are working on a story more than once we will keep them in their folders. At the beginning of the year they were keeping all of of them in there but they would accidentally spill them out on the floor or they would be all smashed in there and hardly recognizable anymore haha! So, I too made a change! 🙂
  
ronnie says

January 14, 2015 at 2:20 am

Thank you.

jbales says

January 15, 2015 at 12:28 pm

Oh my goodness! This could not have come at a better time. Thank you so much for taking the time to outline your ideas on teaching writing. They will truly be a huge help in my classroom. Thanks also for the freebies. Yahoo!

Jessica Bigger says

June 26, 2015 at 1:46 am

We do not have a set curriculum for writing at our school, all I have been told is to make sure I teach Narrative, Informative, and Opinion Writing. I tried using a few different techniques, but nothing has really worked, but Lucy Calkin's books look so helpful. Do you have any suggestions on where to look for them without spending a ton when we are hoping to have a set curriculum in the next few years – or do I just keep adjusting and stick with what I have?

Danielle says

October 17, 2016 at 5:47 am

Hello! Thanks for this informative post! I am new to Lucy and am always trying to learn more! I read your blog post and love your information writing paper! I looked at my Lucy Calkins resources, but I do not see that template offered… Where did you get it?

- Anonymous says
  
  October 17, 2016 at 6:58 am
  
  I'm not sure which template you are referencing but feel free to email me at littlemindsatworkllc@gmail.com 🙂
  
  Tara
  
Ilene J. says

April 18, 2017 at 8:31 pm

Hey Tara!

What date did you publish this Writer’s Workshop blog? We would like to cite you as a wonderful reference for us!

Thanks in advance!

- Tara says
  
  April 18, 2017 at 9:04 pm
  
  Published
  2015/01/13
  
  🙂
  
  - Ilene J. says
    
    April 18, 2017 at 9:19 pm
    
    Thank you so much! I am taking a writer’s workshop class through Learner’s Edge and came across your blog. LOVE IT!!!!