This year is my first year implementing writer's workshop. I luckily was also starting grad school and my first class in September was The Writing Process, where we read Fletcher's fabulous book Writing Workshop the Essential Guide which I've talked about in other posts as well. It is super "user-friendly" and really talks you through the basics of writer's workshop but in a way that you can mold to fit in any classroom. I don't like books that try to "script" anything in your room, I like to make it my own and this book leaves lots of room for that!
So anyway, Writer's Workshop is going really well in my room, I like the "freedom" of it, giving the kiddos a lot of choice in what they write about, what they choose to publish, etc. Sometimes it is hard to meet my district's requirements, such as ensuring students have a published personal narrative when most of my kiddos preferred to make up a story rather than tell a story about themselves, but we're making it work.
One area that I've struggled with is knowing WHEN my students really need to conference. I really don't like when I am not able to meet with a certain kiddo for a few days and when I finally do meet with him or her I find out that they have needed to conference for days about their piece.
A few of the teachers in my building have a system where the kiddos velcro their name to a poster with each step of the writing process as they move throughout it. That way, they know when a kiddo needs to conference. Since I like "cutsie" and the sound of velcro gives me goosebumps, I decided to make a set of posters to display in my room to serve the same purpose.
So, I've created a TPT product with 2 sizes of writing process posters as well as a writing process "bookmark" to keep in their writing folders. I am planning to begin using the posters in my room after break. Each kiddo will have a clothespin with their name on it and will clip their name on the part of the writing process they are currently working on.
