I presented the Introduction and first section of Nancy Atwell's book Lessons that Change Writers. We were very impressed with the clarity with which she laid our every step, beginning with expectations, layout of the writing journal, and then a series of lessons that primarily focus on brainstorming for ideas to write using the various genres. At this point, she is more concerned with content than form, as there is no editing per say in the peer and teacher conferences. The lessons show a teacher and the student how and where to get writing ideas, and to generate enough ideas that one can never again say "I don't know what to write!"
Although this book is geared toward intermediate and middle school children, I can see how the ideas can be used from first grade on up.
Sorry, I guess that was too general
The introduction laid our the rules and the procedures, peer conferences, teacher conerence, time frame, building of the writers notebook, and general structure of the writing workshop. This includes keeping the sessions to about 45 minutes, and meeting from 3 to 5 times a week. The main thing is to be consistant.
The following lessons are basically exercises in developing a repetoire of ideas that are added to, discussed with peers, worked into drafts or otherwise followed up on in other classes and lessons depending on the lesson and genre.
Lesson 1 talks about writing territories, which is basically a list of all the things, people, and places in your life that you can think of that mean something personally to you.
Lesson 2 develops a list of important memories in the students' lives. These can be used to write memoirs or diaries.
Lesson 3 The heart map is a list of things that are deeply important to you. Students draw a heart and write important things inside the heart. This is a lesson on poetry, where students learn that poetry need not be contrived and trite, but all the subjects that can make great poems can be found inside your heart.
Lesson 4 Students devise a list of places poetry can hide, like under the edge of the dust ruffle on your bed, in the dusty corner of your closet, in boxes, piled in a corner. Students are encouraged to look in their own homes and surroundings to compile their list.
Lesson 5 Students discuss commom problems and conflicts that are found in fiction, and come up with their own list of "What if?" situations that could be used to set up a fiction story or book.
Lesson 6 Twenty actions that could be poems had students document 20 every day actions that they make over a weekend, and could be worked into poetry. They will later use one of these actions to write a draft of a poem
Lesson 7 Itches to scratch in essays. Students compile a list of pet peeves, concerns, or things that they have really wondered about. These can be written as essays.
These 7 mini lessons basically provide enough raw writing material to keep students busy for a long time.
Points of discussion were the fact that peer and teacher conferences do not focus on editing for spelling or gramatical errors.
We loved the ideas and concepts because we all have experienced students saying they don't know what to write about. These sessions would satisfy that. We also discussed how these lessons could be worked up or down depending on the grade level, but could be started as soon a children start to write.