Writing Workshop

After reading the Edutopia article about the "Writing Workshop" I realized that what I am doing in my English class is a great tool to reach many students.  I have my students write in a notebook and work on starting pieces but not necessarily finishing them until it comes to a final draft and they need to choose between one of the three pieces that they have started in the previous weeks.  We do incorporate mini lessons on how to improve their writing for grammar throughout, which the article makes a mention of.  Also, students do seem to take more pride in their writing doing it this way, especially when they know they are not graded on spelling, grammar, structure, etc. all of the time when they are writing and when you do praise them for writitng that you see they are excelling in their self-confidence begins to rise.  I feel that writing workshops should be an essential part of every English class to aid in student writing performance and make them feel more comfortable.