In some ways it seems like it would actually be easier to just reinvent the wheel.

Trying to make Atwell fit.

Atwell has so many specific ways of going about the writers workshop, that it is easy to lose sight of what we are doing as teachers. I appreciate the occasion where she steps back, gives some of the philosophy behind her classroom and her actions, then acknowledges that how we execute these ideas may not be the same for everyone. However, her lists and appendices and charts could easily be read as a how-to for successful writing workshops. I think this is a dangerous mindset to fall into: follow these steps, get this amazing learning result. So often we look for step-by-step guides that will lead to success, much like the writing process itself, when it is about finding out what works for us as individuals and our students as individuals. Trying to make Atwell's workshop fit into a classroom that isn't hers sounds like a messy prospect.

Like most experts, she seems to have forgotten how she got to be good at her craft, and at times is unable to articulate what kinds of difficulties she had to overcome to achieve the desired classroom environment. For most of the chapter, I assumed that she was teaching little angel students who never objected to silent reading and writing time. Of course, she showed later on that this wasn't so, but it still makes me wonder why she doesn't spend much time talking about the limitations of the workshop model. We already bought the book, so she isn't selling anything.

Some of the wisdom that I took away from Atwell is about creating a space that sets kids up to be successful. Providing an organization system that they can follow, and coaching them in it, providing clear expectations for writing and reading behavior, creating a physical environment conducive to the workshop. I wonder, though, if there is a cost to running such a tight ship. As a student, having to learn how to follow this teacher's form of organization (yellow folder, blue folder, what?) when the next teacher has a completely different one can take up a lot of mental resources, which we know are actually a finite resource. It is January and most of the eighth graders I am working with still don't know to take out their folders and begin working on the writing prompt on the board when they enter class. It seems daunting in a class where time is already precious to spend even more time teaching students a complex filing system unless you are preparing them to be professional bureaucrats. To take her philosophy a step further, namely letting the students be responsible for organizing their work, why not have students come up with a system that works for them? There are obviously some drawbacks to this--for example, as a teacher you need some consistency--but perhaps the benefits would be enough to justify it.

Fortunately, much of her focus was on environment and how the students respond to it. One of the most interesting discussions concerning environment was the easel versus blackboard question. I too have felt that the board at the front of class can be more representative of an intimidating wall of knowledge to be banked into students heads. (Putting the chalk in the student's hands helps this). But creating a more intimate learning space with the easel seems like a very simple affordance that can have a big pay off in terms of how the lesson goes.

The drawbacks.

The discussion of the affordances of certain mediums in Andrews and Smith was by far the most useful part because in some ways, that is at the crux of digital literacy. It is not only about us as teachers recognizing the unique capabilities of mediums and the differences within and across them, it is also important for us to teach our students how to recognize this and weigh the benefits and drawbacks of certain mediums. Just as they study purpose and audience, students will now need the skills to decide on a medium for communication as well.

While clearly a divisive issue, I think the five paragraph essay can be counted as a tool for these means just like anything else. The argument against the five paragraph essay was that the form inhibits critical thinking. But the conclusion that really seemed to emerge from his evidence, if not the essay, was that we need, again to draw our students' conscious attention to the form and what it does for their writing. (I also think that his prompts, not the three-pronged thesis requirement, were what stifled his students thinking.)

Most importantly, I think that I agree with Atwell that we need our student writers to be publication-minded. Nothing has so great an impact on quality, effort and motivation as the social pressure of having one's work publicly lauded or critiqued. And it is essentially why we write. Not to please the teacher or to pass the MCA's, but to talk to one another in a medium that has its own unique capability:

“Publication in a writing workshop must be a given: student writers need access to readers beyond the teacher if they're to understand what writing is good for, and if they're to write with care and conviction” (Atwell, 1998, p. 102).

Links

One thing that resonated with me in Atwell is her focus on working reading into writing and writing into reading. They are not discrete categories in her workshop. This blog has many good writing prompts (many of which are built into a curriculum that addresses the common core standards), but in particular, the ones about reading and reflection are useful.

http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/post/24812417643/18-writing-prompts-about-reading

As we try to find our own ways to adapt and organize our classrooms, technology may be our friend. Some of these apps we are already pretty familiar with (like Dropbox) but this teacher also shares some organization apps that are pretty useful.

http://www.the-teachers-lounge.com/blog/2012/03/technology-timesavers-for-teacher/

I was interested in some of the implications that Andrews and Smith discuss (p. 121) for technology that actively changes the way we read and write. While my initial reaction was paranoia (Google is deciding what I should search) I also see the utility or at least the potential in this phenomenon for educative purposes. One example I thought of is this Google Chrome app:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jailbreak-the-patriarchy/fiidcfoaaciclafodoficaofidfencgd