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 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…

Considers how encouraging students to tell their own stories in their first languages as well as in English develops academic strategies and a sense of identity. Shares what the authors have learned about how to bring together two teaching disciplines that have sometimes followed separate tracks--the teaching of writing and the teaching of second…

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…

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)

This photo essay includes children's reflections on the opportunities offered by Artists/Writers Workshop for meaning-making in two languages--the language of pictures and the language of words. As students move back and forth between pictures and words, they experience transmediation. They create new meanings, find new and stronger voices, and…

Compares the learning and writing experiences of a child during his kindergarten year (with frequent immersion in reading and writing activities in their writing workshop) to his first-grade year (with worksheets and decontextualized exercises). Critically examines such "serious" literacy learning that lacks a real audience and a real…