Writing About Writing: A Teacher's Handbook to Writing Workshop

Writing About Writing

A Teacher’s Handbook to Writing Workshop

By Barbara J. Monahan

This book is dedicated to my past and present first grade students who have shown me every day what they could write if given the chance.

b.j.m.

I extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Marilyn Nepps who spent countless hours with sticky notes and my manuscript to help me create and share the finished product. Her willingness to help and share her expertise is valued and appreciated.

Contents

Getting Started

Journal Writing Ideas

My Pal, Clifford

Common Knowledge

Tell-A-Story Time

Writing Workshop

Publishing

References

Introduction

Teaching is a major focus in my life, which is not a new concept for anyone in the business. Any teacher can attest that teaching works its way into your psyche and slowly becomes a major part of your thoughts and feelings. You can be on vacation and you will see something that sparks an idea for next year when you are supposed to be off for the summer. Teachers are never at rest as we are always thinking, creating and planning some new idea or concept to be better at what we do with children. Hence the reason that I am attempting to begin a book on a sunny July morning much earlier than I should be awake, without an alarm! There are many people who I must thank for the encouragement they have given me to try to organize what I do with writing and really and truly try to write it down in words.

Once upon a time, about twenty years ago, a wonderful and dedicated mentor/instructor crossed my path early in my teaching career. Pete Grande not only worked for my school district but also taught some graduate courses in the area. As the mother of two young children who needed credits for permanent certification, his classes were the perfect fit! The classes met on the weekend (thank you Grammy and PopPop for babysitting!), and were attended by many people I already knew from my school district . Pete was excited and energetic about teacher education and every project assigned had to be something you would develop and utilize within your classroom. I happened to have a challenging group that year of twenty-eight active and needy first graders. Within the first few years of teaching, I realized that my weakest area was teaching writing so I finally had my chance to try to develop a way to help children learn to love writing and organize myself enough to make it productive. It worked! It has taken twenty years of borrowing ideas, tweaking the plan, changing and adapting but I love teaching writing now and I can see the spark shining in the eyes of six and seven year olds every year. The attempt to write down what I do will definitely be my next challenge.

Lately, a person has emerged like my conscience to encourage me in my endeavor and is the spark behind my effort. This ‘voice in my ear’ is a fellow teacher in my district named Jennifer