Teacher Researcher's observation of Writing Workshop in 1st grade classrooms
This article is a brief view of a teacher as a researcher and my evaluation on Writing Workshop in the elementary classroom. Writing Workshop, or Writer’s Workshop as some teachers have named it, has been around for decades and has been shown through research to be an effective way to grow students’ writing skills. As a guest teacher, I have the opportunity to visit and teach in different grade levels and in different classrooms. This gives me a unique perspective of the ways to implement Writing Workshop and how teachers have created an environment that values writing. Votteler and Miller (2017) note that researchers such as Murray (1972), Graves (1994), Calkins (1986), and Atwell (1987) all have a similar view on writing. Murray is a proponent for valuing the process over the product by focusing on prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Murray was a mentor for the work that Graves, Calkins and Atwell contributed. Graves emphasizes the importance of allowing writers