Getting into a Secondary ELA Workshop Routine

Bonus blog post for the week!

 After establishing my first-day procedures in my previous blogpost, I wanted to share my first full week of workshop (since Day 1 occurred on the last day of the previous week). Below are my daily agendas (our “Gotta-Do Lists”) for my Honors English 9 and co-taught Academic English 10 courses.

Some notes:
·       On Day 1 and Day 2, I provided short articles or stories for students to read as they entered so that I could establish, right from the start, that we sit and read once we enter the room.
·       Adapted from Berit Gordon’s (@beritgordon) No More Fake Reading, I created a bookmark for students to track reading that they will fill out with each book to give a reading schedule. Twenty days is a lot of time, but since this is my first time through, I thought I’d go with it. The upside is that most students are “ahead of schedule” and are feeling accomplished and excited—an unexpected consequence of an extended timeframe to read.
·       We have our Work Log in Google Docs where I can leave comments next to their daily agenda (the goals and tasks they plan to accomplish) or lower in the document where I list the learning targets. So, when students began writing on setting or responding to text structure, I left a summary of our conferences next to those targets since they were specific to our course objectives.
·       I am trialing GrammarFlip.com (@GrammarFlip) this semester. My goal is for students to complete a couple exercises a week and then assign specific lessons to students individually once we begin writing workshops. This way, I can individualize feedback with instant lessons and practice. So far, some students really enjoy this (I’m surprised that some are returning to it during their workshop time if they finish other assessments or as they wait for me to conference with them.

They five images below are my agendas for Days 2 through 6 of establishing my classes at the start of Semester 2 (we are on intensified blocks, so we just began the course).






I will admit that the new format for my classes has made my usual exact timing of when units begin and end a bit more fuzzy, so I do need to still get a stronger feel for how long certain skills will take to teach, practice, and learn so that I do not "run out" of time to work through my curriculum. 

The learning never stops!

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