Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once-a-month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district's kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the…

This article reports on a design experiment in which 4th grade bilingual students were invited to engage in new literacy practices of linking, multimodality, and design using only ordinary, concrete materials like ink, paper, tape, and boxes. The inquiry was undertaken in the midst of a unit of study on memoir in a writing workshop, under…

Uses visual images to open up spaces for imagination and to encourage children to go beyond the familiar during writing workshop. Shares ways to engage students with looking at the visual arts in order to write. Reflects on September 11. Explores the possibilities of the aesthetic response. (SG)

Cauley's books about snakes demonstrate intentional and interesting decisions by a beginning writer. The conclusion states that learning to choose topics for writing in thoughtful ways is an important part of the curriculum in writing workshop.

This article illustrates not only how students with special needs grew as writers in an inclusive writing community, but also how a fourth-grade teacher systematically structured the learning environment and tailored her instruction to guide her students to develop as writers as well as to improve their language skills. (Contains 4 figures and a…

The different ways of creating space for teaching writing and for test preparation as well the tension a teacher undergoes of implementing a writing workshop approach within a school context focused on high-test scores are described. The findings suggest maintaining teacher autonomy and surviving the high demands imposed upon teachers.

Addresses three questions: (1) what individual paths lead selected nonmainstream writers from the "Tenderloin" inner-city area of San Francisco to their craft; (2) how the contexts and relationships with the community support the growth of written expression; and (3) how this support affects individual and community growth. (MG)

Continues an exchange begun with the authors' April 1991 article in the same journal about a writers' workshop in one author's elementary school classroom. Describes her continuing process of questioning and strengthening a workshop approach to writing instruction. (SR)

This article explores the ways three young students expressed their perceptions about literacy and investigates how their classroom identity shapes and is shaped by those perceptions. The ways in which positioning within a writing event and the classroom culture contributed to the development of writing voice and identity are examined. In…

Describes a "dialogic" (Bakhtin, 1981) writing workshop that is responsive to the social priorities of children and that reconsiders dilemmas within an alternative framework. Notes that the experiences and tests of two writers in third grade highlight the way identity and sense of self can be developed and explored in a writing community that…

Suggests that one of the greatest outlets for the middle school voices in one particular classroom is the students' immersion into poetry during writing workshops. Describes a classroom environment that encourages children to express themselves in writing, speech, and action each day. Presents numerous examples of students' poetry. (RS)

This article begins with a "snapshot" of a fifth grade writing workshop and its study of op-ed writing to show an inquiry in action. The framework for this inquiry involves immersing students in reading multiple examples of the kind of text the teacher would like them to write, studying closely how the texts are crafted, and writing their own…

Discusses the experiences of a writing teacher as she conducts inservice teacher workshops and writing workshops for students. Notes that, when students are invited to write with passion about those things that they really understand and to which they have an emotional connection, teachers may be surprised at what students can do. (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)

Shares the experiences of one teacher as she implements process writing in her classroom. (MG)