Education Week's Teacher magazine spoke with Lucy Calkins,​ ​founding director of ​TC's​ Reading & Writing Project, about her popular Units of Study curriculum guide books and the “workshop” method for reading and writing instruction ​that​ she created. The workshop model centers on independent student work in combination with teacher modeling and one-on-one and small-group guidance.

Writer Anthony Rebora asked Calkins about the role of the workshop model today in writing instruction. They were joined for the conversation by Mary Ehrenworth, the deputy director of the Reading & Writing Project and co-author, with Calkins and Christopher Lehman, of Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement (Heinemann).

Asked what are the biggest challenges faced by writing instructors today, Calkins said it is "the need for more professional development, the need for more knowledge about the teaching of writing." Added Ehrenworth: "One more really big challenge, especially at the secondary level, is the need for more time for students to write. ... In some schools, the schedules are out of the Sputnik era. It is a problem if there is no protected time for kids to actually work on their writing."

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LINK: Remodeling the Workshop: Lucy Calkins on Writing Instruction Today (Subscription Required)

Published Tuesday, Jun 21, 2016