When asked to discuss their middle school language arts classes, talented eighth graders identified concerns and made suggestions for their teachers. Students voiced desire for choices in selecting reading materials, writing topics and genre. They preferred having extended periods of time to engage in reading and writing activities, rather than…

Describes a workshop on "slam poetry" and details how this form of performance poetry can lead students back to the written poem with a renewed sense of connection and understanding. Suggests a class exercise that can be adapted to either a creative writing or a literature unit. (SG)

A six-week long intervention that introduced second graders to poetry writing is described in this article, ending in a classroom "poetry cafe" culminating event. This article details the established classroom "writing workshop" structure and environment and the perceptions and observations of how students responded to the instruction. Four poetry…

Describes the incorporation of thematic teaching into the author's Reading-Writing Workshop class. Shares a few activities from one coming-of-age unit that increased engagement and helped students generate writing topics that genuinely interested them and related to the same theme. (SG)

Notes how students learn to examine multiple elements of a text with critical perspective making analogies between others' writing and their own. Concludes that students may only have one opportunity to workshop their writing, but that intense learning experience, coupled with critical responses to another 20 or so drafts, coaxes writers into…

Describes a six-week poetry writing workshop for an eighth-grade class. Discusses getting started, two weeks of immersion in reading poetry, students writing their own poetry, creating a community of poets in the classroom, evaluation, students' poetry, and what the teacher learned. Notes that students gained a much richer understanding of poetry.…

Presents a conversation with Linda Rief, a middle school language-arts teacher, concerning writing workshops in the classroom. (RS)

Provides words and pictures to help understand how the concept of the artists' workshop can enhance writers' workshops in the elementary or middle school classroom. (RS)

Argues that children are as deep as the ocean, with secret places inside of them waiting to be opened. Notes that it is powerful for students to learn they can make sense of the world through words, and describes inviting them into poetry as they read poetry, create poetry packets, and write and revise poems. (SR)

Describes a writing workshop for eighth graders that seeks to tap into the humor of their everyday lives, and that uses humorous literature and film to spark writing. (SR)

Describes a multiage first- through third-grade classroom where the development of children's voices and their writing can happen slowly, in its own time. Uses children's poems to show how children discover the craft of writing through listening to other writers (fellow classmates and authors) in the ongoing process of hearing their own voices and…

Discusses the benefits of collaborative writing in a writing workshop and the value of a social cognitive approach to learning for middle school students. Examines a taped collaborative writing workshop to demonstrate themes of using exploratory talk to stimulate thinking, promoting conceptual understanding, internalizing language to gain…

This paper describes the use of MTV (Music Television Network) videos as "condensed mythologies" in a college English composition class. A videotape consisting of several "classic" videos was shown to the class over a period of three days, and each video was discussed. Handouts of song lyrics were provided for student reference…

Describes how teachers (of grades 4-12) can use computers to teach writing at a variety of levels, from the one-computer classroom to the most sophisticated, networked environments. Describes approaches for four electronic environments, how they might best be used, and what types of computer facility are needed. (SR)