Writing Workshop CD (standalone) for Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product

Familiarity with the practice of teaching is essential to effective teacher development. Witnessing meaningful teaching first-hand, observing master teachers, and reflecting on the actions, decisions, and artistry behind good teaching can bring you further along on your journey toward becoming a better teacher yourself than simply reading and researching ever could.    In each of these four classrooms, you’ll see the three components of Writing Workshop — writing, sharing, and teaching minilessons — in action. You’ll see how the ages and developmental stages of your students impact the process and outcome of a writing workshop. You’ll witness the motivation, learning, and development that writing workshop encourages in young writers.    On this CD you’ll find more than just video, though. You’ll also find a notepad feature that allows you to take notes, copy and paste material from other sources, and save your ideas and insights. Links to the Internet provide connections to related websites. The Study Builder allows you to rearrange specific clips from the CD to focus on a single idea: classroom management, strategies and skills, special needs, or whatever topic you find most compelling.   But it is the classroom footage that will fascinate you as you witness master teachers developing writing skills in 1st through 6th grade. The special focus on English learners will be invaluable to you as you stock your own toolkit for best addressing the needs of these writers.

Table of Contents:
Young Children: Kristi McNeal’s First Grade Classroom Introduction Daily News Minilesson Knee-to-Knee Writing Conferencing Author’s Chair Publishing Interactive Writing   English Learners: Gay Ockey and Say Yang’s Second Grade Classroom Introduction Minilesson Independent Writing Monitoring Group Conference Student Editors Final Copy Author’s Chair Independent Reading   Pen Pals: Valerie Porter’s Third Grade Classroom Introduction Receiving Letters Minilesson Writing Group Share Revising Groups Editing Partners Author’s Chair Making Words   Biographies: Jennifer Miller-McColm’s Sixth Grade Classroom Introduction Research Minilesson Writing Special Needs Peer Revising Peer Editing Teacher Conference Sharing  

About the Author :
Gail E. Tompkins is Professor Emerita at California State University, Fresno. She regularly works with teachers in their fourth through eighth-grade classrooms and leads staff-development programs on reading and writing. Dr. Tompkins was inducted into the California Reading Association's Reading Hall of Fame in recognition of her publications and other accomplishments in the field of reading, and she has received the prestigious Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching at California State University, Fresno. Previously, Dr. Tompkins taught at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, where she received the Regents' Award for Superior Teaching, and at Miami University in Ohio, where she taught at the McGuffey Laboratory School and worked with preservice teachers. She was also a school teacher in Virginia for eight years.                 Dr. Tompkins is the author of several best-selling books published by Pearson, and has also worked with grade school through college-level writing teachers at two National Writing Project sites during the last three decades. She directed the Oklahoma Writing Project when she taught at the University of Oklahoma, and more recently she was the director of the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project in California, where she initiated a program to encourage teachers to write for publication.  Pearson has published three collections of classroom-tested teaching strategies and lessons written by teachers in the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project: Teaching Vocabulary: 50 Creative Strategies, Grades 6-12, 2nd ed. (2008), edited by Gail E. Tompkins and Cathy L. Blanchfield; 50 Ways to Develop Strategic Writers (2005), also edited by Gail E. Tompkins and Cathy L. Blanchfield; and Sharing the Pen: Interactive Writing With Young Children (2004), edited by Gail E. Tompkins and  Stephanie Collom.