How To Structure A Creative Writing Workshop In Middle School (Part 1)

PlanningThe Structure Of Your Creative Writing Workshop Sets Your Students Up For Success.

If you are a teacher or parent who is thinking about running your own creative writing workshop, you have come to the right place. I have several years of experience running creative writing workshops in middle schools, high schools, and homeschool settings. Over the years I have learned tips and created tools to help writing workshops run smoothly. I plan to spend the next few posts sharing that knowledge with you. 

Creative writing workshops are a great way for educators to coach students and help them develop their writing skills. When done correctly, creative writing workshops can help students to view themselves as authors. The right workshop can take a student from being curious about writing to being passionate about writing. Writing workshops can be powerful tools in the hands of skilled educators. And best of all, writing workshops can be designed to fit writers of varying age groups and skill levels. They can also be tailored for after school writing clubs, traditional classrooms, and homeschool co-ops.

But with so much room for flexibility, there is always the potential for chaos. In order to ensure that your creative writing workshop runs smoothly, you will need to make some important decisions before the workshop even begins. One of those choices is how much freedom you want to give the students in the content they create.

Student Choice

One option is to give the students complete freedom when it comes to choosing the content that they want to create. This works well for after school writing clubs and enrichment programs where there are not set curriculums or prescribed standards that you have to hit as a teacher. This also works well when you are running a workshop with highly motivated students who already have a writing project in mind. It gives them the freedom to work on projects that they are excited about and allows them to explore who they are as an author.

When giving students complete choice, it is always a good idea to have them set clear writing goals in the first meeting. For example, you can tell the students something like, “This is a six-week creative writing workshop. By the end of the workshop you must turn in a completed project. You can choose to write a novella, or a collection of short stories, or a collection of poetry, or even the draft for a novel. The choice is up to you, but you need to have a completed project by the end of the workshop.” You can then give the students a planning guide to help them set realistic expectations of what they can accomplish in that period of time, and determine how much time they will have to spend writing outside of the workshop in order to meet their goals.

I have a free Creative Writing Planning Guide that is perfect for this activity. Click here to claim your free copy!

If you are working with younger students in a school setting, it is a good idea to set some boundaries. Explain that students are free to choose their own projects and topic as long as they are school appropriate. This cuts down on the risk of receiving any R-rated stories at the end of the workshop.

Common Assignments

If you are running your creative writing workshop in a traditional classroom setting, or if you are working with students who need a bit more handholding, you can create guardrails for the student by having them all work on a common assignment. Instead of giving them the option to choose their projects, tell them that they will each create a short story collection, or a memoir, or whatever it is that you would like them to work on. The students still have some choice since they get to choose the topic of their short stories, but they are all writing short stories.

This is also easier for you as a teacher because all of your students will be working on similar projects. You can tailor all of your mini lessons to teach short story writing, as opposed to the more general creative writing lessons that you would have to teach if you chose the first option of allowing students to work on different types of projects. If you are new to running creative writing workshops, or if you want to make sure that your students don’t bite off more than they can chew, it might be a good idea to have your students work on a common assignment.

Final Thoughts

Creative writing workshops can be fun and memorable experiences for both students and teachers. However, in order for them to be effective at helping students grow as writers, the workshop facilitator needs to make some key decisions about the workshop’s structure. Deciding whether you will give your students free reign on their writing projects or assign a common project will help you as you gather resources and create mini-lessons that your students will enjoy.

If you would like more tips to help you on your teaching journey, sign up for my newsletter and get a free copy of my Creative Writing Planning Guide.