By Lynn Bowmaster, Writing Workshop Facilitator & Trainer
Statement of Need:
In Massachusetts’ schools there is an increasing emphasis on teaching students to write. In a climate of high stakes testing, schools often focus on improving students’ composition skills almost as soon as they put pencil to paper. With this increased pressure, we risk losing students’ interest before they discover the joys of writing. We want them to love writing, yet learning to write is a highly complex task. It requires the study of difficult grammar rules, paragraph and sentence structure, exploration of various styles, and the acquisition of a broad vocabulary. The fact is, these skills challenge most of us all of our lives. When students have obstacles like reading and handwriting issues, language barriers, or a lack of emphasis on the written word in their home environment, these skills can seem unattainable. It is easy for students to feel that “they will never get it right”.
Becoming a good writer requires a truly motivated learner. Classroom introduction of the creative writing workshop can bridge the gap between diverse learners and standard writing curriculum. Set in the safety and peer affirmation created by workshop space, the students explore the pleasure of describing the world around them as only they can. The power and entertainment they experience in the workshop gives them a new reason to invest themselves in a life long relationship to the written word.
The workshop method employed is that of the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA), developed by Pat Schneider. Peter Elbow of the University of Massachusetts Writing
Project calls her “the wisest teacher of writing I know”. AWA has now trained more than 500 practitioners in its method, which is used in settings from elementary schools to
colleges, area prisons, rehabilitation programs, grief support groups, and circles of regularly published adult writers.
The following objectives describe the creative writing workshop and teacher training in a classroom setting. It is structured around a 10 session format (1 hour each), but could be expanded to additional time and activities.
Objective I:
Conduct A Writing Workshop Inside Classroom or After School Setting: A creative writing workshop leader will lead a one hour writing workshop in the classroom once a week for 10 weeks, depending on funding. Each workshop begins with brief examples of writing from diverse authors and styles. The leader then gives “exercise prompts” designed to “transport” writers to a surprising place; perhaps a memory, an idea, or an image. Examples include startling lines from a poem, photographs, objects, or a great opening line from one student passed to the next. Regardless of the prompt, students have almost total freedom about how they wish to respond.
The leader works to create an environment in the workshop focused on how fun writing can be. After 10-15 minutes in which students and adults write together, writers are asked to read . Each session showcases 15-20 writing pieces, thereby offering a fast, highly enriched environment for exploring rhyme and rhythm, dialog, use of detail, plot, etc. Students respond to what they like and remember about each piece with the workshop leader modeling specific, highly affirmative feedback. The feedback inside the circle
is fundamental to building the writers’ confidence in their “newborn” expression. Most students listen and give feedback carefully, since the discussion is focused on the group's creative stories.
Positive Outcomes: Motivation and Fluency
The workshop is deliberate about teaching students that every single one of them is a writer, and investing them in the fact that there is only one person who can express things the way they do. Often, this focus on the uniqueness of their own stories and ideas about the world is a new association to writing work in school. Therefore, creative writing workshops empower young students, motivating them to want to write, thereby increasing their fluency. Through positive feedback, students discover that expressing themselves in their own unique writing voice is fun. They become interested in “being a writer”.
In workshop feedback, students reflect on what works in particular writing pieces. The workshop’s regular examination of quick snap shots of different styles leads students to take a new interest in literature as a whole and to see the stories they read from the writers view point. The workshop provides a setting for students to improve their writing, to explore exercises that play with poetic and literary techniques, and to learn what is effective in plot, style, word choice, voice, use of time, dialog, theme, etc. Even when students are very young they enjoy thinking about what makes a good story or poem. Through the workshop, students are empowered to appreciate how different writers work their magic and, because they now understand they have their own unique writing voice, they can associate themselves with that magic.
Students learn to honor each other’s personal stories through participating in the affirmative feedback of a writer’s workshop. Thus, in addition to writing enhancement, the workshop can play a significant role in teaching students to respect their classmates as individuals, thereby creating a more positive learning climate for the overall school environment.
Objective II: Conduct In Class Teacher Training In Writing Workshop Method:
A creative writing workshop leader will train classroom teachers by leading writing workshops within the teacher’s class. In class observation is the best way to learn this
workshop method, since the most critical piece is building the sense of the workshop as a safe and exciting place to write and read one’s work. The teacher can observe workshop leadership within the classroom including opening the workshop, choice of effective writing prompts, and the process of giving instructive, affirmative feedback which will build students motivation to write. In the case of the upper grades, language arts teachers can observe the workshop leader for the early morning periods and then use his/her material in the class periods that follow. Once in class training is complete, the creative writing workshop leader can consult with school and/or teacher as needed.
Positive Outcomes: In the choice of writing prompts and opening readings, and in sharing
their own writing, teachers are able to share with their students in a truly inspirational setting. The writing workshop deepens the connection between teacher, individual
students, and the language arts curriculum as a whole. Through the workshop, teachers learn to provide a special space for their students to develop a passion for writing.
Lynn Bowmaster trains teachers in creative writing workshop methods in Western
Massachusetts and can be reached at [email protected], 413-584-3373.
Statement of Need:
In Massachusetts’ schools there is an increasing emphasis on teaching students to write. In a climate of high stakes testing, schools often focus on improving students’ composition skills almost as soon as they put pencil to paper. With this increased pressure, we risk losing students’ interest before they discover the joys of writing. We want them to love writing, yet learning to write is a highly complex task. It requires the study of difficult grammar rules, paragraph and sentence structure, exploration of various styles, and the acquisition of a broad vocabulary. The fact is, these skills challenge most of us all of our lives. When students have obstacles like reading and handwriting issues, language barriers, or a lack of emphasis on the written word in their home environment, these skills can seem unattainable. It is easy for students to feel that “they will never get it right”.
Becoming a good writer requires a truly motivated learner. Classroom introduction of the creative writing workshop can bridge the gap between diverse learners and standard writing curriculum. Set in the safety and peer affirmation created by workshop space, the students explore the pleasure of describing the world around them as only they can. The power and entertainment they experience in the workshop gives them a new reason to invest themselves in a life long relationship to the written word.
The workshop method employed is that of the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA), developed by Pat Schneider. Peter Elbow of the University of Massachusetts Writing
Project calls her “the wisest teacher of writing I know”. AWA has now trained more than 500 practitioners in its method, which is used in settings from elementary schools to
colleges, area prisons, rehabilitation programs, grief support groups, and circles of regularly published adult writers.
The following objectives describe the creative writing workshop and teacher training in a classroom setting. It is structured around a 10 session format (1 hour each), but could be expanded to additional time and activities.
Objective I:
Conduct A Writing Workshop Inside Classroom or After School Setting: A creative writing workshop leader will lead a one hour writing workshop in the classroom once a week for 10 weeks, depending on funding. Each workshop begins with brief examples of writing from diverse authors and styles. The leader then gives “exercise prompts” designed to “transport” writers to a surprising place; perhaps a memory, an idea, or an image. Examples include startling lines from a poem, photographs, objects, or a great opening line from one student passed to the next. Regardless of the prompt, students have almost total freedom about how they wish to respond.
The leader works to create an environment in the workshop focused on how fun writing can be. After 10-15 minutes in which students and adults write together, writers are asked to read . Each session showcases 15-20 writing pieces, thereby offering a fast, highly enriched environment for exploring rhyme and rhythm, dialog, use of detail, plot, etc. Students respond to what they like and remember about each piece with the workshop leader modeling specific, highly affirmative feedback. The feedback inside the circle
is fundamental to building the writers’ confidence in their “newborn” expression. Most students listen and give feedback carefully, since the discussion is focused on the group's creative stories.
Positive Outcomes: Motivation and Fluency
The workshop is deliberate about teaching students that every single one of them is a writer, and investing them in the fact that there is only one person who can express things the way they do. Often, this focus on the uniqueness of their own stories and ideas about the world is a new association to writing work in school. Therefore, creative writing workshops empower young students, motivating them to want to write, thereby increasing their fluency. Through positive feedback, students discover that expressing themselves in their own unique writing voice is fun. They become interested in “being a writer”.
In workshop feedback, students reflect on what works in particular writing pieces. The workshop’s regular examination of quick snap shots of different styles leads students to take a new interest in literature as a whole and to see the stories they read from the writers view point. The workshop provides a setting for students to improve their writing, to explore exercises that play with poetic and literary techniques, and to learn what is effective in plot, style, word choice, voice, use of time, dialog, theme, etc. Even when students are very young they enjoy thinking about what makes a good story or poem. Through the workshop, students are empowered to appreciate how different writers work their magic and, because they now understand they have their own unique writing voice, they can associate themselves with that magic.
Students learn to honor each other’s personal stories through participating in the affirmative feedback of a writer’s workshop. Thus, in addition to writing enhancement, the workshop can play a significant role in teaching students to respect their classmates as individuals, thereby creating a more positive learning climate for the overall school environment.
Objective II: Conduct In Class Teacher Training In Writing Workshop Method:
A creative writing workshop leader will train classroom teachers by leading writing workshops within the teacher’s class. In class observation is the best way to learn this
workshop method, since the most critical piece is building the sense of the workshop as a safe and exciting place to write and read one’s work. The teacher can observe workshop leadership within the classroom including opening the workshop, choice of effective writing prompts, and the process of giving instructive, affirmative feedback which will build students motivation to write. In the case of the upper grades, language arts teachers can observe the workshop leader for the early morning periods and then use his/her material in the class periods that follow. Once in class training is complete, the creative writing workshop leader can consult with school and/or teacher as needed.
Positive Outcomes: In the choice of writing prompts and opening readings, and in sharing
their own writing, teachers are able to share with their students in a truly inspirational setting. The writing workshop deepens the connection between teacher, individual
students, and the language arts curriculum as a whole. Through the workshop, teachers learn to provide a special space for their students to develop a passion for writing.
Lynn Bowmaster trains teachers in creative writing workshop methods in Western
Massachusetts and can be reached at [email protected], 413-584-3373.
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