Last week our elementary school faculty had a fishbowl discussion about the challenges of the writing workshop. We hoped that an honest authentic dialogue would collectively help us problem-solve some of the rough spots. One of the most daunting factors about teaching a writing workshop is how to effectively manage time. Below are some ideas that floated out of the fishbowl or popped into my head later. The key thing to remember is that the writing workshop as presented in a lot of “how to” texts is a model. Ultimately, if you preserve the basic integrity of the writing workshop, you have the power to shift and shape the model to suit your students’ needs and the time you have available in your schedule.

Ideas to Try:

Find yourself always skipping the share segment of the writing workshop? Try shifting the sharing portion of the workshop to the beginning. While…