PUBLISHING!! :)

Chapter 7 talks about the three main things needed when planning workshop management. The first being presence. The teacher needs to make sure that they are up and walking around the classroom while the students write. I think that is a good idea because students would easily get off task if the teacher is somewhere else trying to catch up on her own work. Also this would be a great time to conference with students and see where their writing is going. The second part was room. Allowing students to work somewhere beyond their desk. Many students will have lots of materials so it may be easier for them to spread out on the floor or on a big table. This could also help with people talking because they won’t be crowded in a small place. The third management idea was about supplies. Teachers need to make sure their supplies are in a place that the students can get to them without the aid of a teacher. In my field experience classroom I see a lot of these ideas. The students know where all their supplies are and get them as they need them. Also my teacher walks around the room while the students work and read over what they have written so far. Another good point the book made was making sure not to have a “no talking” environment. I have seen that in past field experience classrooms and it didn’t work as well as the other classrooms I observed where they were allowed to talk.

Chapter 8 talks about writing workshop kits and how they are really a “cop out”.  They try to make it look like writing workshops are easy and all the same by having handouts for both the teacher and the student.  It also talks about how the teacher has to let the students control it because it is their writing. My field experience teacher right now does some of this. They may read a book or talk about a certain subject, but then the students are allowed to take what they want from it and write however they want.  The main thing I got out of this chapter is that writing workshop can be hard, but it is also really rewarding.

Chapter 19 starts out by saying that publishing is not an option. I agree with this and I have seen publishing while observing many classrooms of different age groups . one thing that I found interesting was the idea of giving deadlines far in advance. I think that could work sometimes, but I think its also important to be flexible in certain situations. Nevertheless it made it a point when it said that “the one thing that can get a writer going and move her forward like nothing else is a deadline”. The chapter also talks about how some students don’t get to publish a lot because teachers make the writings very elaborate books and pictures. I couldn’t agree more. My students in my current field experience class publish almost once a week. They seem to enjoy that and they get to write about many things that they really care about. I also liked that this chapter talked about letting students have a lot of independent writing time. I think that it’s important to let them work on their own so that when the teacher is not around they can  still follow the process.