TCRWP Writing Institute Day 1

What a day of learning.  It was filled with Lucy Calkins, Monique Knight, Amanda Hartman, and Carl Anderson.  

My takeaway from Lucy Calkins this morning as I sat in the wooden pew at Riverside Church is “Our Listening Helps.”

She explained that we listen to hear the story…listening with the expectation, for the writer to say more.  She spoke about Don Graves and Don Murray‘s work on writing.  She shared the quote, “Teaching writing is a matter of faith, faith that the writer has something to say, and the words to say it.”

When students learn that we listen to their work as a writer, they in turn will listen to their own writing.

My takeaway from Monique Knight began with her read aloud of The Best Story - a great book to start the year off right.  It sets a nice tone for writer’s workshop.  She later shared another text, These Shoes and how she has used it for Reader’s Workshop and Writer’s Workshop.  She had colored post it notes referring to both.  She had yellow post-its with her RW notes and questions and pink post-its for WW.

I appreciated that she modeled how to best use a mentor text.  She continued to use the author’s name, the strategy, even through the mid-workshop, to show us how to reference the mentor text when teaching.

She also had us write.  We Learn By Doing!

Our afternoon was spent with Amanda Hartman.  (I am loving all this learning.)  She spoke to us about Balanced Literacy.  She talked with us about how pieces are transferrable to writing and reader’s workshop.

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She also shared with us the Process that we can expect students to do during their writing time in Writer’s Workshop.  She explained that students can be expected to move through - Planning, Drafting, Revising, and Editing.  Students may not find every piece of revision nor every piece of editing that can be done, but when they have done some of both, that is a good day.  As primary students progress and become even better writers, from Planning to Editing, will take 2 to 3 days instead of 1 day.

I wrapped up my day with Carl Anderson, who spoke to us about Conferring.  We had a short amount of time with him so we grasped what we could.  I learned that the tone of a conference is calm, friendly, and my favorite word, curious.  It puts the writer at ease, which then allows us to teach the writer.  When teaching the writer, we want to be sure to only teach one thing.  We may see multiple things that can be changed, but focus on one, knowing we will make our way back to that writer and we can work with them on the other writing strategies at that time.

So much learning in Day One.  I am already looking forward to Day Two.