What influence will implementing Writers’ Workshop have on my second graders as young writers?

Stacey Zierden


Seminar Title


What influence will implementing Writers’ Workshop have on my second graders as young writers?


Concept/Strategy

Focus of the Research


Writing


Grade Level

Research Was Applied


2nd Grade


Relevant Grade Level

Connections


2nd Grade


Discipline

Where Research Was Applied


Writing


Additional Discipline Areas

I see Application to


Language Arts


Invitation/Commercial


Looking for just the right writing assignment while searching Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers and find the one. You get so excited to begin the assignment with your students only to find that it has taken you twice the time to do it and you’re exhausted by the editing process and the final draft seems like forever away? This is what my life used to be like in a nutshell. I despised teaching writing even with all of the efforts I made to try and make it fun, purposeful, and relevant. After implementing the different stages of Lucy Calkins Writers’ Workshop, I have to say writing is one of the most anticipating things I get to teach. I have found easy strategies to hook my most relentless writers, help my students become peer editing enthusiasts, and have taken a lot of the work off of my own plate. This session is geared towards first and second-grade writers.


Abstract


We have all heard students share that they don’t know what to write about. We sit and rack our own brains trying to help them come up with a topic. They begin writing and you begin to cringe at the idea that they have suddenly forgotten how to write a sentence. You immediately begin editing their sentence with them as they begin to write only for them to look at you and say, “What am I supposed to write?”. This has been a battle that I have fought way too many times in the past. After completing my literature review I determined that the areas I wanted to focus my action research on are developing clear and concise expectations with lots of modeling, encouraging creativity, creating writing partnerships within my students to help engage students in the editing and conferencing process, as well as taking and making time for all students to publish their work. With the use of parent and student surveys, monthly writing prompts, editing activities, and different forms of publication of my students work I was able to collect a wide variety of data to help show the growth my students have made as writers.