Writer's workshop

1 Where it came from

Writer's workshop treats writing as a process of planning, drafting and revising rather than a single finished draft. Lucy Calkins, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, founded the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project in 1981, and its Units of Study, published by Heinemann, turned the workshop into a K-8 reading and writing curriculum; Education Week reported that about 16% of K-2 teachers used it in 2022. It is also the writing half of balanced literacy.

2 The big ideas

• Children are writers now. They write real pieces, stories, how-tos, opinions and reports, not just exercises.
• Writing is a process. Plan, draft, revise, edit, publish; good writing comes from going back over a piece.
• Choice drives effort. Children mostly pick their own topics within the unit's kind of writing.
• Time to write every day. Most of the block is spent actually writing, not hearing about writing.
• Teach the writer, not just the writing. One-to-one conferences give each child the next step they need.

3 What a lesson looks like

A 45-minute 3rd-grade workshop in a unit on true stories. The mini-lesson takes ten minutes: the teacher connects to yesterday ("We've been choosing small moments"), teaches one move by showing her own draft, stretching I fell off my bike into the wobble, the gravel and the sting, then has partners try it aloud, and links it to their work: "Try it in your story today." For the next 25 minutes the room is quiet with writing. The teacher kneels by one child, reads his draft, praises the strong verb in it and teaches him to add what he was thinking. She sees four children this way. The last five minutes, two children read the parts they stretched, and the class says what they noticed.

4 Reading and math

This is a writing approach. Its twin is reader's workshop, with the same shape of mini-lesson, independent reading with conferences, and share.

5 The adult's job

The teacher plans a unit around one kind of writing, writes a short demonstration piece, teaches a brief mini-lesson each day, confers with several children during writing time, keeps notes on what each needs, and gathers the class to share.

6 How progress is checked

Mostly by looking at children's writing over time: conference notes, drafts in a writing folder, and a finished piece at the end of each unit scored against a checklist or rubric for that kind of writing.

7 Strengths and criticisms

8 What the research says

The Writing Next meta-analysis of grades 4 to 12 (Graham and Perin, 2007) found a positive effect for the process writing approach, though smaller than its effect for explicit strategy teaching (0.82), which topped the list. The What Works Clearinghouse's guide to teaching elementary writers rates teaching the writing process for varied purposes as strong evidence, fluency with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction and typing as moderate, and daily writing time and an engaged community of writers as minimal. In short, the process at the heart of writer's workshop is well supported; the workshop as a whole works best with explicit strategy and skills teaching added in.

9 How to try it

1. Give your child a notebook for their own writing and 15 to 20 minutes a few times a week to write in it.
2. Open each session with a two-minute mini-lesson: show one thing writers do, like a strong opening line, using your own writing.
3. While they write, sit beside them for a short conference: say one thing that works, then teach one next step.
4. Have them go back to a piece to revise it, adding detail or a better ending, before starting a new one.
5. Let them "publish" a finished piece: read it aloud to the family or make it into a little book.
6. Add short, explicit practice with sentences, spelling and handwriting alongside the workshop.

10 Using Peabody with it

• Writing process posterPlan, draft, revise, edit, publish, on one sheet for the wall or a writing folder.
• Low-stakes writing promptsPrompts by grade for the days a child can't think what to write about.
• Writing prompts wheelSpin for a topic on the board; workshop prefers children's own choices, so use it as a starter.
• Weekly reading logFor the reader's workshop half: a simple log of choice books; Peabody has no conferring or writing-folder tool.

Peabody is free and has no ads. Pages on peabody.kids are for children; pages here are for the adults teaching them.

11 Programs that follow it

Programs and materials often named with this approach: Units of Study for Teaching Writing (Calkins, Heinemann).