Writer’s Workshop At Home
I
love writing. I’m sure that’s not that much of a surprise since I write
articles, I have a blog, and I can’t seem to tell my fingers to just
quit. Once I get on a topic, I have a tough time just letting it go. But
my affliction does not seem to affect my children. In fact, writing
even one sentence seems to be the worst form of torture that I can apply
to my children. I’m not sure if that is because they were schooled
partly in a public school or what, but they just really don’t seem to
get my affection for writing.
So I came up with this wild scheme. It was so far-fetched I just knew that it would work. Don’t all far-fetched schemes work out perfectly? Okay, so I had no clue what I was going to do, but I was determined to find a way to share my enjoyment of writing with my children.
And so I researched. That’s always my first step. By doing a quick search for “teach writing” I came up with a few ideas. The first was a journal or a writer’s notebook. This gave me a place to start.
Writing a journal was a great idea. I have a journal, I knew I wrote in my Diary as a kid and I still have it. (SHHH, don’t tell my Mom or my brother!) I thought it was a logical place to start, until my kids stared at me and said, “What am I supposed to write?” Well writing to a prompt wasn’t what I had in mind for a journal. It makes it more artificial than a true “this is what happened in my life” type entry. So I went for further research, hoping to find a way to teach them how to pick a topic.
And that’s when I came across the public school’s answer–the Writer’s workshop. Now I was overwhelmed with the possibilities. There was so much for me to take in that I truly had no clue where to start. And all the books I read and web pages I visited really left me with more questions than answers. It was just such a huge undertaking. And no cut and dried place to start or path to follow.
And so I traversed one. I took it step by step as always! For this you will need 2 composition notebooks. Spiral is just fine, but I find those pages are a little easier to rip out and therefore–they also have a tendency to fall out easier. For one notebook (not the one being discussed today) you will also need 4-6 tabs that you can place inside the composition book. Not the dividers, just the self-adhesive tabs.
The following pages are meant to help you walk through the beginning steps of a writer’s workshop. I am hoping that by taking these three steps the writer’s workshop won’t be nearly as overwhelming for you as I found it.
So I came up with this wild scheme. It was so far-fetched I just knew that it would work. Don’t all far-fetched schemes work out perfectly? Okay, so I had no clue what I was going to do, but I was determined to find a way to share my enjoyment of writing with my children.
And so I researched. That’s always my first step. By doing a quick search for “teach writing” I came up with a few ideas. The first was a journal or a writer’s notebook. This gave me a place to start.
Writing a journal was a great idea. I have a journal, I knew I wrote in my Diary as a kid and I still have it. (SHHH, don’t tell my Mom or my brother!) I thought it was a logical place to start, until my kids stared at me and said, “What am I supposed to write?” Well writing to a prompt wasn’t what I had in mind for a journal. It makes it more artificial than a true “this is what happened in my life” type entry. So I went for further research, hoping to find a way to teach them how to pick a topic.
And that’s when I came across the public school’s answer–the Writer’s workshop. Now I was overwhelmed with the possibilities. There was so much for me to take in that I truly had no clue where to start. And all the books I read and web pages I visited really left me with more questions than answers. It was just such a huge undertaking. And no cut and dried place to start or path to follow.
And so I traversed one. I took it step by step as always! For this you will need 2 composition notebooks. Spiral is just fine, but I find those pages are a little easier to rip out and therefore–they also have a tendency to fall out easier. For one notebook (not the one being discussed today) you will also need 4-6 tabs that you can place inside the composition book. Not the dividers, just the self-adhesive tabs.
The following pages are meant to help you walk through the beginning steps of a writer’s workshop. I am hoping that by taking these three steps the writer’s workshop won’t be nearly as overwhelming for you as I found it.
