Observations of writing!!!

Throughout my field experience I have had the opportunity to observe writers workshop.  I am placed in a first grade class.  Though my class participates in writing workshop on a daily basis it is not conducted like our text book suggest.  The children are not able to pick their own topics for their writing.  The teacher gives them writing prompts for them to use.  The teacher does try to pick topics that are of interest for the students.  This really bothered me at first after reading the text but later I realized that though the children do not get to pick their topics during writing workshop they are able to do free writing during center time on a daily basis.  The students typically do centers for an hour every day.  One of the centers is a writing center.  At the writing center children sit a table in a section of the class that is designated just for writing.  The table is full of helpful resources for the children to use to help them with their writing.  The teacher has books in a variety of genres where students can get examples of good writing styles to use.  There are also informational texts present at the center if children want to write an informational piece.  Just the other day a student turned in an informational paper about sharks that he had wrote by gathering facts from a book the teacher had about sharks.  The story was over a page long and was very good for a first grader!  The teacher also has resources like sticky notes, magazines to cut out pictures, stamps, markers, crayons, glue, scissors,  pre-made cards from a store to write letters on, and a dictionary just to name a few.  The students are allowed to write about anything they want and in any genre they want.  Every child also has their own writing folder at the center where they can keep their drafts and their work.  After the students have finished a piece they can decide to publish it.  Once it is finished they turn it into the teacher and get to share with the class before centers start.  The only requirement is for the students to have at least seven complete sentences.  I think this works out wonderful and the children really enjoy it.  It’s really apparent that this center produces some of their best work.  After seeing how this center is conducted I want to make sure to have a center like this in my future classroom no matter what grade I teach.  The teacher also has a poetry center where students get to copy poems and circle special characteristics or themes used in it.  They are also allowed to write their own poems.  The children really enjoy getting to share the poems too!  It is nice to see that I can incorporate writing on a daily basis other than just during writer’s workshop or the designated writing time.