The Writing Workshop Ch. 1-5

I do not have much, if any, experience with writing workshops.  I believe most of my experiences with writing class consisted of learning the subject of English.  Our time was spent learning grammar and punctuation through worksheets and “correcting a passage” type activities.  When learning about things like voice, delivery, form, and content, there would be time for independently writing passages with a cut and clear deadline.  There was never a consistent everyday writing time where we were completely free to explore within a genre such as in a writing workshop.  I do not consider myself an active writer because it was something that was never made a part of my day-to-day.  Ray says on page 18 that there are two types of writing people do:  “The write to support their lives (writing to live)” and “They write to communicate ideas to others (composition).”  I certainly write to live on a daily basis, but find no desire for composing on a daily basis or from time-to-time. 

            My meanderings about my lack of writing workshop experience leads me to the things I saw as most vital to a writing workshop and development of children as writers in the first five chapters.  On pages three and four, Ray discusses what the writing workshop is truly about.  And I believe the first step to having anything be productive is knowing what the real purpose of that thing is.  In the case of the writing workshop she states that the child as an individual writer, not finished products, is the focus of the writing workshop.  She then explains that if we are just focusing on the writing process of pumping out works for practice in structure, then “This down-the-line kind of emphasis can be contrasted to a writing workshop where the focus is very much on writers rather than on the process that leads to finished pieces.  Developing the child as a writer is more important than simply developing the writing.

            The other main point that stood out to me was the tone of workshop teaching in chapter four.  What stood out most to me was that the children need to see their teacher as a writer in order to set the tone.  I completely agree that it is vital to the children’s motivation and value they place on writing, to see their teacher as one of them, going through the same successes and struggles.  I feel this is quite important for me to note because I know that it is something I will need to work on.  I do not have too much experience to pull from for my children to see me as a content writer like I will be encouraging them to be.  This leads me to wonder how much I can progress as a content writer before I have my own class where there is a writing workshop.  The more important question is; is being a writer something I can truly come to value in my personal life?  I believe as Ray says on page 47 that “In the best writing workshops I have ever seen, the students can tell you all about their teacher as a writer, and that teacher can tell you all about his or her students as writers too.”  I feel it is important for students to become writers, I just believe I need to start becoming more of a writer myself so we can be in the process together.