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Using the Workshop Approach in the High School English Classroom - Book Cover Look Inside

Using the Workshop Approach in the High School English Classroom

Modeling Effective Writing, Reading, and Thinking Strategies for Student Success

Everybody wins when you practice the workshop approach in high school English!

Do you find that preparing students for standardized tests interferes with teaching advanced thinking, reading, and writing skills in a meaningful way? Here's a way to balance test preparation with more subjective, creative competencies. This practical guide addresses the daily running and practice of a workshop-based classroom, using research and the author's experiences to illustrate how to establish a workshop that:

  • Fosters lasting learning while reinforcing skills needed for standardized tests
  • Teaches audience and purpose as a vehicle to style and structure
  • Gives students the confidence to take risks

Full description

Using the Workshop Approach in the High School English Classroom - Book Cover Look Inside
Product Details
  • Grade Level: 9-12
  • ISBN: 9781412925495
  • Published By: Corwin
  • Year: 2005
  • Page Count: 192
  • Publication date: October 13, 2005
Price: $34.95

Review Copies

This book is not available as a review copy.
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Description

Description

Everybody wins when you practice the workshop approach in high school English!

Do you find that preparing for standardized tests interferes with teaching advanced thinking, reading, and writing skills in a meaningful way? Do you want to balance test preparation with more creative activities? Success in school and beyond depends on one's ability to read fluently, write coherently, and think critically. This handbook uses the workshop model for exponentially increasing adolescents' abilities in these three key areas.

This practical guide addresses the daily running and practice of a workshop-based classroom, using research and the author's own experiences to illustrate how to establish a workshop that:

  • Fosters lasting learning while reinforcing the skills needed for standardized tests
  • Teaches audience and purpose as a vehicle to style and structure
  • Provides a supportive and lively environment in which students are comfortable enough to take risks and share original ideas

Try Urbanski's approach to teaching literacy analysis and mentoring student writers, and discover just how rewarding the workshop experience can be!


Key features

§ Strategies have been tested, refined, and used successfully in the classroom.

§ Written in an accessible tone, tied together with coaching/running as an extended metaphor

§ Sample rubrics

§ Numerous examples of student work

§ Numerous personal examples and vignettes

§ Practical teaching strategies

§ Practical ideas for classroom research/curriculum refinement

§ Research that supports (and strategies for using) free writing in the high school classroom

§ Research and practical advice about conferencing

§ Teaching grammar within the context of reading and writing

Author(s)

Author(s)

Cynthia D. Urbanski photo

Cynthia D. Urbanski
Cynthia D. Urbanski is a Co-Leader of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte Writing Project, where her focus is teacher research, summer institutes, and structuring professional development for surrounding areas. Since graduating from the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1995 and while completing a master's of English education at UNC-Charlotte in 2000, she has worked with writers from middle grades through the undergraduate level. As an instructor at North Mecklenburg High School since 2000, she has worked with student writers in the International Baccalaureate Program as well as standard-level English courses. Her mission has been to help all students improve their literacy skills by making their writing, reading, and thinking meaningful to them. She continues to run regularly and considers it an integral part of her writing process and her life. Currently she is working to develop the concept of her second book project and spending time with her family in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Foreword by Lillian Brannon

Acknowledgments

About the Author

1. Running and Writing

The Workshop Culture – A Study of Coaching

Conclusions and The Mission

2. Who Writes the Rule Book Anyway? Accountability, Tests, and the History of Rhetoric

A Bit of History

And What About the Other Parts of My Curriculum?

Testing and Accountability

Conclusions

Suggested Reading

3. Coaching and Teaching By Doing; Modeling Thinking, Writing, and Reading

A Horror Story in Two Scenes

Scene I: Sunday Night Back in the Dark Ages

Scene II: Sunday Night One Week Later

Modeling; A Simple Concept With Huge Benefits

Modeling Gives Us Fresh Experiences to Draw From

Modeling Can Transform Our Classrooms

Modeling Fosters Authentic Learning

Modeling Will Supercharge Our Planning Time

Modeling In Our Classrooms: What Do We Do?

Modeling Concepts for Writing

A Lesson in Modeling Writing

Modeling Concepts for Reading

A Lesson in Modeling Close Reading and Analysis

Conclusions: Pulling It All Together and Coming Full Circle

4. Warming Up the Writing Muscles; Two Tools for Invention

Free Writing

What Is Free Writing . . . Really?

Why Does Free Writing Work?

Application: Helping Our Students Discover the Magic

A Lesson in Free Writing

The Last Word on Free Writing

Daybooks. A Place to Store Free Writing and Thinking

Conclusions

5. The Practice Field; Building Strength and Confidence in Writing and Literary Analysis

Types of Practice

Reader Response and Invention

In-Class Revision and Drafting

Types and Progression of Assignments as Practice

Conclusions

6. Race Day: Evaluation and the Idea of Grammar

Grammar in Context

The Bottom Line On Grammar

A Grammar Lesson

A Word of Caution

For Further Ideas

A Word About Standards

Watching the Race: Evaluating Student Writing

Grading Practice Writing Without Eradicating Its Purpose

Grading Response Journals or Daybooks

Grading Published Pieces

Portfolios: Looking at the Whole Season and Student Growth Over Time

Conclusions

Suggested Reading

7. Responding as a Spectator: The Writing Conference

Why Conference Anyway?

A Trek Through a Conference Log

Writing Conventions/Skills in Context

A Fifty-Minute Tutoring Session Translated Into a Ninety-Minute Class

Basic Behavior in a Writing Conference

A Close-up Look at a Conference

Conclusions

8. Becoming Independent; Writing and Literature Groups

A Scenario: Student Writing as Class Literature

Student Response to Groups

How to Make Groups Work

Model Functional Groups

Provide Structure and Incentive

Help Students Find Their Own Structure

What About the Kid Who Doesn’t Buy Into Group Work?

Timing

Writing Groups

Literature Groups

Conclusions

Suggested Reading

Epilogue – Why Teachers Coach

References

Index

Reviews

Reviews

Quote by Charles M. Longbottom, International Baccalaureate Program Coordinator, North Mecklenburg High School, Huntersville, NC: "Both new and veteran English teachers will learn new strategies that will enrich their students' lives while greatly improving their writing clarity, voice and precision."
"Both new and veteran English teachers will learn new strategies that will enrich their students' lives while greatly improving their writing clarity, voice and precision."
Charles M. Longbottom, International Baccalaureate Program Coordinator
North Mecklenburg High School, Huntersville, NC
Quote by Nelda R. Cockman, Clinical Assistant Professor, College of Education, University of North Carolina, Charlotte: "This book offers motivation and inspiration for preservice and novice English teachers and provides reassurance and encouragement for the veteran teachers who feel burdened by the standardization of education. It takes into account the high-stakes accountability of our current environment and documents results from research based practices. The examples and lessons reassure us that effective teaching does not have to give way to 'teaching to the test'."
"This book offers motivation and inspiration for preservice and novice English teachers and provides reassurance and encouragement for the veteran teachers who feel burdened by the standardization of education. It takes into account the high-stakes accountability of our current environment and documents results from research based practices. The examples and lessons reassure us that effective teaching does not have to give way to 'teaching to the test'."
Nelda R. Cockman, Clinical Assistant Professor
College of Education, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Quote by Robin Boswell, Middle School Language Arts Instructor, Concord Middle School, MI: "Drawing from her experience as a coach, the author demonstrates the importance of modeling in the classroom by reading and writing alongside her students, taking risks, and building a strong community of learners in the process. This book will inspire good English teachers to become great literacy coaches."
"Drawing from her experience as a coach, the author demonstrates the importance of modeling in the classroom by reading and writing alongside her students, taking risks, and building a strong community of learners in the process. This book will inspire good English teachers to become great literacy coaches."
Robin Boswell, Middle School Language Arts Instructor
Concord Middle School, MI
Quote by Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, May 2006:

"It is possible to balance test preparation with advanced thinking, reading, and writing skills. This book shows you how."

"It is possible to balance test preparation with advanced thinking, reading, and writing skills. This book shows you how."
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, May 2006
    Price: $34.95

    Review Copies

    This book is not available as a review copy.

    Other Titles in: Teaching Methods & Learning Styles | Literacy, K-12