Mini-Lesson
A typical daily mini-lesson during Writers’ Workshop in my kindergarten classroom lasts 10-15 minutes.
These mini-lessons provide the tools and the motivation for children to craft and enhance their stories each day.
During my mini-lessons, I teach predictable lessons in the following five categories: “techniques, strategies,
understandings, conventions, and questions” (Ray & Cleaveland, 2004, p. 86).
Often kindergarten students get “stuck” writing the same type of books over and over again. When this
happens, I incorporate “other kinds of things to try when making books” into my mini-lessons (Ray & Cleaveland,
2004, p. 158). During this time I model how to create different types of books such as ABC books, books with labels,
counting books, and lift-the-flap books (Ray & Cleaveland, 2004).
Independent Practice with Conferencing
Conferences in my kindergarten classroom take place immediately after the mini-lesson and lasts about five
minutes. According to Ray and Cleaveland (2004), Writers’ Workshop conferences with young children usually begin
with teachers encouraging students to take ownership of ideas and then expanding them in their writing. I meet with
several students one-on-one each day. During this time, I assess what they have written so far, give a praise point,
and then choose one aspect of his/her writing to focus on during the conference.
Often conferences in kindergarten revolve around topic choice, especially in the beginning. “A good writing
idea is one they have a lot to say about. We teach them to use talk to do the writing work” (Ray & Cleaveland, 2004,
p. 145). If children struggle to get their words on paper initially, the following strategies may be incorporated into
conferences to help build students’ confidence and get them started: “stretching the word out and saying it slowly to
listen to the sounds, thinking about what the words looks like, thinking about spelling patterns, and using resources
in the room” (Ray & Cleaveland, 2004, p. 146).
In addition, conferences lend themselves to teach young children about the process of writing. Prewriting,
revising, and editing skills may be improved upon. According to Dorn et al. (1988), there is confirmation that students
using the Writers’ Workshop model are practicing editing and revising approaches learned from their teacher’s mini
lessons. Teachers they observed who implemented modeling and assisted writing found students able to revise
words from their writing and kept their writing at a prompt pace (Dorn et al., 1988). Children exposed to modeling
during writing time were also better able to apply “knowledge gained from the assisted writing activities, including
vocabulary, transitional words, composing strategies, and revising and editing techniques” (Dorn et al., 1988, p. 151).
Johnson (1999) reports “the writing conference encourages and reinforces the writing experience. It supplies
the child with an interested and caring audience. The child’s self-esteem is enhanced by the conference as well.
Children love the intimacy” (p. 89). Johnson also writes about how the bond between the teacher and the child is
increased during this time. She states, “this knowledge about the child is tremendously beneficial for individualized
learning and assessing capabilities” (p. 89).
During conferencing time, students know that their teacher is “on the lookout for smart work we see children
doing. When we find smart work, we ask those children to share their writing for very specific reasons–they’ve done
something in the actual text or in the process of writing that we want other children to know about” (Ray &
Cleaveland, 2004, p. 153).
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