Incredible Writing Workshop for 2nd Graders
Writing Workshop is an incredible opportunity to inspire your students to grow as writers. I have always dreamt of being a children’s author, I still do! Year after year I felt like I struggled to encourage my students to share my passion for writing.
When my school adopted the Lucy Calkins writing curriculum, everything changed! I finally had the framework for how to structure my writing workshop. It also promotes the love of writing in my students! I am going to share an overview of what our writer’s workshop looks like. You can use this set up with or without Lucy Calkins lessons!
Schedule of Writing Workshop
Writing Mini Lesson (10- 15 minutes)
For the mini lesson, students are seated on the rug in a specific writing rug spot. They should have their writing folders with them. The class has assigned spots for writing, because we do a lot of turning and talking to their writing partners. The assigned spots ensure they are next to their partner. The students bring their writing folders with them because we often take out pieces to look at or they can make a note/change while we are discussing the writing craft skills.
This time is when I do direct teaching and modeling of the focus writing skill. I find it really helpful to use this time to examine an author’s writing in a text or demonstrate a think aloud and write a short paragraph in front of the students.
For this part, I follow the Lucy Calkins lesson outline, but you can structure it however will best met your students’ needs! I end the mini lesson by leading the students in setting a goal or having a focus. The focus will be what they need to work on/ add to their writing pieces when they go back to their desks.
Writing (35- 45 minutes)
Ah, the part of writing workshop that students just WRITE!! They self manage the writing pieces in their folder to decide when they should add to or edit a piece or begin a new piece. Students are writing at their seats, silently. They only get up to have a conference with me, meet with their writing partner, or get a supply from the writing center. (I’ll talk more about those later!)
Sometimes I play soft music in the background to help my students focus. They always love Class Dojo focus music.
Closure (5 minutes)
At the end of our writing time, I call the students back to the carpet (with their writing folders) and we debrief over their independent writing time. Students share something they were proud of or how they implemented the skill we discussed in the mini lesson. We also use this time for students to ask each other questions or for advice on their writing pieces.
Our Writing Workshop Center
This is what the display looks like above our writing center. It features a lot of anchor charts and examples that we add to, highlight, and interact with regularly. The anchor charts are all from Lucy Calkins curriculum, there is a post it pack, and I just laminated them to make them last longer! Students really refer to these during our writing workshop. They continuously look for help and guidance from these anchor charts. As I switch them out and we learn new skills, I but the ones I take down in a binder so that they can continue to reference them.
I also have the writing partners posted here, so that students can reference and remember who their partner is if they need to conference. I partner students by similar ability level and ability to cooperate well with each other!
The drawers in the bottom right of the picture, hold our writing materials! In our writing workshop students can write on anything.
These half notebooks are where students write and brainstorm their ideas. We do a lot of this in the beginning of the writing unit and I encourage them to continue to add to it as they are inspired. This is where they look instead of saying, “I don’t know what to write about.”
When students are drafting their writing pieces, they can pick from a variety of paper that I offer in our writing center drawers! Those drawers have post its, flower tablets, super hero tablets, different colored lined paper, construction paper, really anything that I can find! It also has a variety of fun writing utensils and erasers. I want students to be inspired by the materials that they are using during writing workshop.
Also available in during our writing workshop is a variety of writing resources. These include dictionaries, folders with a pictorial alphabet and vowel/ blend sound help, word banks for specific topics, and thesaurus. At the beginning of the year I teach my students how to best use these resources to help them.
Writing Workshop Classroom Display
Students each have a space on our writing work wall. During writing worksop, they can change out the piece of writing they have on display at any time. I encourage them to put up something that they are proud of writing! Part of being proud in writing workshop is acknowledging the importance of editing. That being said, you made notice there are cross outs on these paper, we say YAYYY to that! I do not edit what they post on the wall, we all know that these are a work in progress and celebrate every bit of progress they are making!
I hope that this overview has given you some ideas that you can use in your classroom with your growing writers! If you have any questions please let me know!
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