As preservice teachers with limited classroom experience so far, we are sometimes delusional when we think about our future classroom. We envision our ideal classroom that works quietly and diligently from the beginning of the day until the dismissal bell. Above all else, we imagine that we will always be fully in control of everything that is going on in our classroom at all times. For this reason, reading a book like The Writing Workshop can sometimes be intimidating because it causes us to question our own definition of a functioning classroom.
The main idea that I took away from the reading in The Writing Workshop for this week is that the writing workshop should be structured while simultaneously being free-flowing. Students in the writing workshop should feel comfortable taking the time set aside for writing in whatever direction they want to go, and it is the teachers job to make this possible. The teacher is responsible for giving his or her students all of the materials,space, and time they may need during the writing process, from brainstorming to publication. It is the teachers job to give several suggestions for what students could spend their writing time doing. The teacher should also provide various types of spaces in which students can work, whether they may like to work sitting with friends, sitting by themselves, sitting at a desk, or stretched out on the floor. It is not, however, the teacher's job to tell the students what to write about or what steps they should follow on a given day.
The main obstacle that I will have to overcome as a teacher in a classroom with a writing workshop is letting go of some of that control. As a teacher, it will be my job to help students that are stuck in the writing process, but not to take over their project. It will be my job to create a safe space where my students feel comfortable exploring new topics and genres and taking risks to improve as a writer. As was explained in Chapter 8, it would be impossible to directly oversee the writing projects of every student in the class. Instead, I will have to act as a guide for my students when they need me.
Your first section is interesting. It seems like there is a process of deconstructing our "ideal" classrooms as part of this work. When I went through this, it didn't take me long to realize that there is no ideal classroom that actually includes real people with all their problems and brilliances. Reconstructing it was fun, and exploded all of the opportunities available there.
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