Nancie Atwell on Writer’s Workshop

Lesson’s I’ve learned from the Heinamin Blog, “Writing Masters: Lessons That Change Writers with Nancie Atwell”

I Captured this Piece of Atwell’s Rainbow in My Cup:

We can agree that one of the toughest parts of writing is getting started.  Atwell has lead me to realize that my students struggle, because they have not actually thought about the topics.  They have no ideas to write about.  Once started, students embark on an excruciating serious of steps to extract information from memory and Wikipedia.  Devoid of a personal connection students parrot the ideas of others in attempted regurgitation.  No wonder students are well spoken, but poorly written. * 

Atwell provides a solution through the Territory of Writer’s Notebooks.   Introduce students to the world of ideas.  Train them in how to capture these ideas.  Stimulate their neurons into making connections, expanding meaning, and developing original thoughts.   By sampling various genres and recording events, lists, and motes of inspiration, information becomes relevant.  Understanding and facts provide content, personal connection creates connotation, and the synthesis of individual experience with knowledge results in creativity and original thoughts.  Thoughts are born for expression.  A student who has sampled the world of ideas and captured them in the Territory of a Writer’s Notebook has a ready source of thoughts and opinions to share through written expression.

Read on for a summary of Attwell’s blog on the topic of fostering writing ideas.

“Writing Masters: Lessons That Change Writers with Nancie Atwell”

“I hope kids will leave the first day’s workshop with too many places to begin, overwhelmed by a wealth of personal material.”

Atwell never wants to hear a student say again, “I don’t have anything to write about.”:

“So I read aloud to them and we read together poetry, memoirs, short stories, essays, parodies, profiles, and book reviews relevant to students’ experience. I demonstrate my own ideas and intentions.”

• Start with a rich environment – Fill your room and time with topics for discussion and inspiration for writing.  This includes news articles, readings from mentor texts, poetry, etc. centered around student interests.
• Begin by preparing fertile minds with poetry and class discussions regarding possible writing topics, then incorporate other genres throughout the year.

Now that students’ minds are primed with ideas…

• Build in structured time for conferencing and encourage sharing.  Atwell “stages readings” of her homemade student magazines.
• Offer opportunities and suggest various methods for publishing, “places to submit book and music reviews, gifts of writing for people they love, and options for guest editorial columns in local papers”, while repeating the mantra “You could do this!”

Atwell’s strategy for using Writer’s Workshop to foster ideas and end writer’s block:

• Provide student with new 100 page spiral notebooks
• First 3 pages – Table of Contents
• Next 15 pages – Territory
  • Collection of interesting ideas, responses to minilessons, projects, and possible writing topics)
  • Format – notes, plans, lists, events, or single words
  • Atwell’s students often cite the Territory as instrumental in their writing

As my student Tyler put it, “My territories section of my writing handbook is like my security blanket. I never panic about ideas because I have all these plans. It makes me feel confident. But mostly it reminds me of how much I have to say.”

• Throughout the year, utilize minilessons to aid students in adding to their territories in each genre study
• Encourage students to utilize their territory as a resource when writing

 

*Please refrain from judging me for the grammatical errors in this sentence.  I am ignoring grammatical conventions in an effort to be poetic.