Choice and Agency in the Writing Workshop

Step into a classroom and “listen in” on the writing initiatives and motivations of students who are given significant choice and agency in the development of their writing. Discover why upper elementary children need ways to become literate as kids, not merely as prototypes of adults or teenagers. Filled with rich portraits of in-class writing interactions and challenges, this book highlights various themes that help teachers become better observers and more responsive to the complexity of writing in children’s lives. Key themes include drawing and popular media in children’s learning, the challenges of listening to students during conferences, the intersections of writing and relationships, the roles of sharing and publishing writing, and the importance of shaping a writing curriculum through dialogue.

Book Features:

• Offers suggestions to help educators engage standards without overlooking students’ learning needs.
• Identifies approaches to enhance teachers’ expertise to support all writers, including those who fall outside usual expectations.
• Includes a writing process guide, examples of students’ work, and questions for reflection.

Fred L. Hamel is a professor in the School of Education at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington.

"There is much to learn from Hamel in terms of his thoughtful pedagogical decision making, his keen sense of observation, and his delight in children as writers, thinkers, and people. All teachers, not simply those who are already believers of the importance of valuing children’s participation in official and unofficial worlds (e.g., Dyson, 2003), would benefit from his view into this classroom world of children writing."

—Teachers College Record

"With Choice and Agency in the Writing Workshop: Developing Engaged Writers, grades 4-6, Fred L. Hamel invites readers to observe a writing workshop in action, think deeply about writing workshop, and imagine how they can respond to student writers in generative ways. In addition to sharing about what works in this kind of instruction, Hamel also explores tensions that educators might experience within a workshop context."

—Journal of Language and Literacy Education

"Fred Hamel not only offers us readers insight into the text-mediated dramas of children’s lives, he allows us into the sort of pedagogical reflections that keep us all in the flow of becoming."
—From the Foreword by Anne Haas Dyson, University of Illinois

"This timely book is about the experimentation, flexibility, vulnerabilities, and risks of educators when they don’t assume to always know what is best for writers. Through classroom examples, Hamel helps us to see the complex and entangled identities of teachers and students. This book asks us all to consider putting less emphasis on expected writing endpoints and think more about the social processes and relationships of literacies coming to be."
—Candace R. Kuby, University of Missouri and author of Go Be a Writer! Expanding the Curricular Boundaries of Literacy Learning with Children

Table of Contents

Foreword by Anne Haas Dyson

Acknowledgments

Introduction
   The Origins of a Writers' Workshop with Upper Elementary Students
   The Goals of This Book
   Audience and Chapter Overview

Chapter 1. Initiating a New Writing Environment: Perspective and Practice
   Day One
   Theoretical Foundations
   Our Writers' Workshop Approach
   Context: Reflecting on Race and Class
   Keeping Alive a Listening Stance with Upper Elementary Students

Chapter 2. Writing as Visualizing Popular Worlds
   Martin: Screen Shots and Video Games
   Carla: Author-Artist in Community
   Ricky: Learning to Write as Play
   Concluding Thoughts
   Questions for Reflection

Chapter 3: Conferencing and Literacy Desiring: Trusting Students as Writers
   Learning to Latch on to Students' Goals
   Responding to Confusing Writing: Macie's Story
   Respecting the Present Moment
   Questions for Reflection

Chapter 4. How Relationships Influence Writing and Writing Influences Relationships
   Building Social Connections Through Writing
   Navigating Voice, Control, and Status
   Embracing the Social (Writing) Curriculum
   Questions for Reflection

Chapter 5. Sharing and Publishing: Being Seen, Heard, and Valued
   The Lure of Publishing
   Negotiating Public Spaces
   Shaping Community Membership
   Setting New Conditions for Language Development
   Questions for Reflection

Chapter 6. Shaping the Writing Curriculum Together
   Revisiting Plot: Talking About Lines and Mountains
   Navigating Controversial Content
   Forming Purposes in Community
   Questions for Reflection

Chapter 7. Developing Children as Writers
   Becoming Literate as Kids
   Implications for Practitioners
   Closing Thoughts

Afterword with Sam Allegro

Notes

References

Index

About the Author