Writer's Workshop--Chapter 7--Literature in the Workshop

Doreen Kaleiwahea  6/21/2011

Writer’s Workshop:  Chapter 7   Literature in the Writing Workshop

          Chapter 7 contains a line I would like to quote and even add to my quote book, “We write with our minds, our hearts, and our ears (pg. 74).” 

Empowering these senses will assist your student into the better writer/thinker.  Usually, the author retorts, when your students does write like this, they are students who are avid readers.  The challenge is becoming

a lover of reading.  If a child does not already have a love for reading, instill a love for listening.  The teacher’s important role is to connect the student to the craft of writing through the love of reading, listening, talking about and sharing the love of stories.  Literature can be part of that love when the teacher skillfully exposes the child to good writing, different kinds of writing and being lead into the deeper quality of stories. 

          This chapter confirms that reading aloud builds community in classrooms.  Reading together paired with sharing the confusing points of the story help with clarity, understanding and inferencing.  The suggested craft to be practiced is time and occurance, read superior books (a list is provided), using writer’s craft to assist in all writing areas of curriculum content; literature, math, science, social studies, etc.  Suggestions for the classroom—Stock your library with quality books, use picture books that spark interest, find out what you do not know about your students’ writing; ask in many ways what they like and don’t like about writing, design an easy system for writing and keeping track of writing.  These are elements of this chapter that I will implement in my upcoming year.