Involving Parents in Writing

While individual teachers have adopted the teaching practices of Lucy Calkin's Writer's Workshop over many years, it is within the past two that our staff has fully embraced the Workshop philosophy of developing writers to be independent thinkers and creators of their work and to build motivation within the writer by conferring about individual student choices.

In order to support student writers, teachers at Camino felt it was equally important to educate parents in the work we were doing with students. Our goal was to introduce parents to the Workshop model so they would be better equipped at supporting their children with the writing process at home and they might even be encouraged to do some writing too. Our hope was that students and parents see writing as a purposeful form of expression and realize the power of their written "voice."

Our school is known for its high level of parent involvement in school activities, so when the TIIP team hosted a Writing Workshop dedicated to parents that was taught in Spanish, we were not surprised by the large amount of parent participants and their level of enthusiasm as we introduced them to The Mini Lesson.

One way we invest students in the writing process at the beginning of the year is by creating a Heart Map. The heart map is essentially a brainstorming tool that allows the writer to think about all of the people, places, and things that hold a special place in their heart and record those ideas on a piece of heart-shaped paper that is glued into the Writer's Notebook. Students refer to the heart map instead of approaching the teacher with the common phrase, "I don't know what to write about." 

The experience that took place that Saturday morning between parents and teachers was one that we will not forget. Parents chose topics such as the meaning of their name, the country they came from, and special moments from their childhood-stories that had not been shared in years, for some it was the first time they had ever shared the story.

The outcome of the share was similar to results we expect from our students, individuals begin to see connections between themselves and other writers. Writers begin to see the power that writing can have. Community is strengthened.