Writer's Workshop Professional Development in CESU #cesuvt #resvt #vted

(image from http://readingandwritingproject.com/about/staff/staff-developers.html)

Chittenden East Supervisory Union educators in grades two through four are participating in an exciting professional development opportunity this year.  North end and south end elementary school teacher teams are working with Beth Moore to infuse Writer’s Workshop into our instructional practices.

Beth Moore is a Staff Developer for the Reading and Writing Project (http://readingandwritingproject.com/about/overview) and doctoral candidate at Columbia University’s Teachers College. She is an expert in content area literacy and is co-author of How-To Books: Writing to Teach Others (Heinemann, 2013) a unit of study for Kindergarten writers.

During each day long session, Beth leads educators through a series of planning and demonstration opportunities.  Teams review the key components of successful writing instruction within a Writer’s Workshop model all the while accessing the expertise of Beth.  Then the entire group moves into the classroom where Beth leads writers through an activity and process, speaking both to students and to educators.  This “lab” or onsite, in the classroom modeling serves as an essential and powerful mode of professional development.  

On the first of four days spent with Beth throughout the year, teams visited three classrooms, allowing everyone to see what Writer’s Workshop can look like at varying grade levels.  The main points from the first day of learning centered upon:

• management to support the Writer’s Workshop
• the writing process
• assessment

We look forward to continued learning from Beth and the opportunity to develop our instructional practices further.