This unit on Living the Writer’s Life is designed to serve as a framework as you launch your kindergarten Writing Workshop at the beginning of the school year. The unit reflects current research and understandings about early literacy and addresses the NCEE Kindergarten Writing Standards. Writing Workshop fits into the rich context of classroom life where children are learning to write. This context includes:
Understanding the context in which Writing Workshop fits allows you to plan all aspects of instruction in the most appropriate context. This unit is specifically about your workshop time.
As you look through the unit, you will see that lessons repeat, circling back to ideas as children widen their experience as readers and writers. The experience of reading other writers’ work and creating their own work as writers becomes the raw material from which children construct the foundation of their understanding of writing.
“Why writers write” is an ongoing topic of exploration in lessons based on other authors’ work (author-based lessons). As children write more, they gain greater insights into others' writing; that is, they learn to read like writers. We are teaching them through repeated experience rather than an explicit lesson on reading like a writer.
“What writers write” supports another series of author-based lessons that help children read like writers. They begin to build experience and understanding about the kinds of things that writers create and informs their decisions about their work time.
Procedure lessons help children learn productive routines for workshop. Some procedures will change over time and can be revisited in mini-lessons; others need to be taught, charted, and reinforced.
Using tools to support independence creates opportunities for the teacher to help children use a variety of writing tools.
Finally, the picnic basket lessons (language-development lessons) support oral-language development as a strategy for composition and can be repeated throughout the year.
It is important to understand that Writing Workshop is a time for children to play with writing and approximate being a writer. This joyful, imaginary play energizes their learning about written language. Living the Writer’s Life is the unit that will sustain your kindergarten Writing Workshop throughout the year. Lessons are designed to help you envision and experience the structure and tone of Writers Workshop, so you can continue all year as you introduce your children to different types of writing. Once you feel your children are ready for the kindergarten genre unit, introduce it into your Writing Workshop.
Adapt the unit to meet your students’ needs and fit it in your daily schedule. Feel free to include your own favorite touchstone texts, read alouds, and mini-lessons (PDF or Word). If you are working with English-language learners, you need to think about sheltering instruction in your Writing Workshop (PDF or Word). This unit will evolve as we add new lessons and titles; think of this site as permanently “under construction,” and come back often to visit and see changes.
| Type of Lesson | Goal | Lessons in the Unit |
| Procedure Lessons | To help children learn productive procedures for Writing Workshop (routines) and rituals that introduce magic and play into Writing Workshop |
1 (PDF or Word) 2 (PDF or Word) 4 (PDF or Word) 8 (PDF or Word) 9 (PDF or Word) |
| Using Tools to Support Independence |
To help children make use of classroom tools to work independently | 7 (PDF or Word) |
| Strategy Lessons | To help children think of ideas and expand ideas (composing) and record ideas (transcribing and problem solving) | 4 (PDF or Word) 5 (PDF or Word) 10 (PDF or Word) |
| Author-Based Lessons | To help children use other writers’ work to understand topic choice, writing forms and structures, and pictures | 2 (PDF or Word) 3 (PDF or Word) 6 (PDF or Word) |
| Language-Development Lessons | To help children develop oral language and vocabulary | 5 (PDF or Word) 10 (PDF or Word) |
If you have technical questions about this Web site, contact Joel' Bradley-Hess at
joel_bradley-hess@dpsk12.org or 720-423-3723.
Page last updated:
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
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