Awakening Brilliance in the Writer's Workshop: Using Notebooks, Mentor Texts, and the Writing Process

by Lisa Morris

Master teacher Lisa Morris invites you to share her secrets of success with writer's workshops. After years of experimenting with the workshop model, she has developed the most effective ways to apply it in the classroom, yielding higher test scores and increased student engagement. Through practical, step-by-step instruction, Morris demonstrates how to use writer's notebooks, mentor texts, the writing process, and the 6 traits. Specific topics include:

setting up the classroom for workshops
creating a writing curriculum
creating guidelines, expectations, and lessons for using notebooks
helping students select ideas, brainstorm, and plan
assigning writing partners and organizing sharing
getting students to self-reflect
creating process and product portfolios
finding resources for publishing
holding effective writing conferences

The book also offers an array of invaluable tools, such as

student writing samples
mini-lessons for each stage of the writing process
lesson plans
pacing guides for dividing your time during the workshop
sample charts to help you stay organized
suggested classroom guidelines and handouts
a list of mentor texts, organized by what you can use them to teach (e.g., adjectives, alliteration, onomatopoeia, beginnings, endings, strong verbs, sensory details)
quotations on each stage of the writing process to motivate students

Genres: Teaching, Education

208 pages

First published October 21, 2011

About the author

I feel privileged to have been a classroom educator for the past 25 years as well as a college adjunct professor for the past three. I am so blessed to have 5 educational books published that are geared towards helping fellow teachers of reading and writing:

Awakening Brilliance in the Writer's Workshop (Eye on Education)

RTI Meets Writer's Workshop (Corwin press)

Narrative Know-How (Tate Publishing)

Expository Explosion (Tate Publishing)

Teaching the Common Core Literature Standards (Routledge)

I also have 5 stories published in the well-loved anthologies...Chicken Soup for the Soul. I grew up reading these so it is always exciting to receive news when my writings are selected to be in these books.

The book that I hold dear to my heart is my anthology...One Life at a Time: A Rescuer's Memoir. This book is available on Amazon and Kindle. These stories embrace the beautiful and yet heartbreaking nature of animal rescue.

And finally, I have added jewelry designer to my list of wishes that seem to be coming true. Please visit my little store at- https://www.etsy.com/shop/BeulahBelle...

Reviews

[Lisa Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am new to this site...and tried to get this book to my author's page...I actually wrote the book...so yes I have read it. :)

[Beth Hughes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the required text for one of my summer grad courses on writing. And while there are many takeaways for any ELA teacher, it is--like so many other resources, geared toward elementary school. The course, however, is a K-12 course.

[Jennifer Hein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and realistic. I incorporated several ideas right away. Definitely recommend to anyone looking to pump up your elementary writing workshop.

[Gabie (OwlEyesReviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

My whole outlook on teaching writing has changed for the better!

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for a class. It's written for elementary teachers by an elementary teacher, but it still had some usable ideas for juniors and seniors.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely more geared to an elementary class and a school without 1:1 tech. However, there were some solid ideas and resources here that would work for any writing classroom.

[Janelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good basics, but geared more toward elementary teachers. Seemed out of date in terms of technology (I had lots of questions about how various steps or methods looked in a 1:1 classroom). I will seek out other resources to answer those questions. Lots of mentor text examples that are picture books, little that aren't. Also seemed geared (especially at the end) toward fiction writing.