Craft Writes Part 2

In the beginning of chapter seven, I found these couple of sentences to be very profound and comforting: "Expertise in a subject matter is not always the key to giving good lessons. You do have to know something about the subject you're teaching. You just don't have to know everything." pg 96 Hale. As Hale encourages us as teachers I seem to be understanding the purpose of writing in a different sense that will help my audience feel at ease with these new elements in writing as discussed in chapters 1-6 and the structure of writer's workshop.

Writer's workshop has four components
1. Mini lesson
2. Try-it
3. Independent Writing
4. Share

Together these components create a structure of writing that allows for student freedom in writing. During one of our visits, one of the teachers did an excellent job demonstrating the flexibility the teacher and students have with this writer's workshop structure. Yes there are four components, but they can be repeated and can take place in different locations in the room. This type of flexibility is critical to learn at a young age so that you discover best where you can work in terms of writing or other subjects too and how to overcome change.

The lesson we observed began with a direct modeling of the teacher's diary which was used as the mini lesson to start the writer's workshop. As Hale points out, the mini lesson is not always a lesson, it is more like an activity that demonstrates a particular craft. The teacher wanted to convey the different types of diaries, the idea of writing can be in different forms, and the purpose can be useful or just an idea to ponder. Some of the teacher's diary entries actually came to fruition, but not all. I liked that aspect, because having a diary, journal, or even a blog has that unwritten notion that it will work, make emotions at ease, or the solution will appear following a long entry (etc.). As a young writer I wish that notion of writing for writing's sake would have been explained so that when I wrote in a diary I didn't feel so intimidated to write.

Next, the teacher had her students try writing something in their journals that interests them in some way. The teacher allowed the students to leave the circle area and spread out around the room. Then, a few kids read their progress and went back to independent writing after seeing what a peer wrote, giving the others a direct peer model.

The writers workshop structure and design layout makes so much sense and I believe it highlights what Hale wrote in the beginning, that being the teacher doesn't require expertise, but only needs a well-rounded knowledge base. As the teacher you will be able to start the writer's workshop and the writing ball will hopefully begin to roll so the teacher and students can learn from each other.