How To Structure A Creative Writing Workshop In Middle School (Part 2)

Structured Writing Workshops Help Students To Flourish.

Creative writing workshops are a great way to help students see themselves as writers. Most writing workshops are set up in a way that provides students with more freedom of choice and the chance to take creative risks. Students are able to experiment with their writing and collaborate with their peers. 

While freedom is enticing, creative writing workshop facilitators need to ensure that they also have structures in place to help their sessions run smoothly and ensure that all students can succeed. There are many different ways that writing workshops can be structured, but I’ll focus on one that I’ve found to work best with middle school students. It has four sections: check-ins, mini lessons, independent practice, and sharing.

Check-In 

In most creative writing workshops, my students are working towards a personal writing goal. Based on their interests, they might be trying to write a novel, a memoir, or complete a collection of short stories. Every time we meet, I take the time to check in with the students about their goals.

At the beginning of each session, I give the students a warm-up activity that asks them to write one or two sentences describing the progress they have made since our last meeting. I then give students a chance to share aloud. This helps to build a sense of community as they share their success, struggles, and suggestions with each other. It also gives me a idea of what the students might need more help with and which students might need additional support to reach their goals. 

Mini-Lessons

After the check-in, we move into a mini lesson that covers a writing skill that the students need more help with. It could be a lesson on how to use dialogue tags and action beats. Or a short lesson on creating a setting. Or perhaps a lesson on word choice. For each mini lesson, I explain the concept and provide a mentor text that we can examine together. For example, if I am teaching about figurative language, I might use one of the vignettes from Sandra Cisneros’s The House On Mango Street. After examining the mentor text, I model how I would add figurative language to my own writing, and then we practice together as a class. 

Independent Work

Next, it’s time for the students to put the lesson into practice on their own. This independent practice and take many different forms. Sometimes, I ask students to read through their own writing and make revisions based on the topics covered in the mini lesson. Other times, I might also ask them to use the new skills to create an additional scene that could be added to whatever project they are working on. Or I might ask them to use the new skills to rewrite an underdeveloped scene. For example, if we have just covered a mini lesson on dialogue, and their projects have lines such as, “We talked about our childhood,” I will ask them to develop that into a scene by including dialogue complete with dialogue tags and action beats. If a student has come to the workshop without their project, I will give them a separate, shorter assignment that allows them to practice whatever skill we are working on that day.

During this time I encourage students to work quietly so that their classmates can think and write without distractions. Depending on the students, I might play soft, instrumental music in the background, or we might just write in comfortable silence. This is also a good time for me to quietly check in with students who seem stuck or who might to be struggling to meet their writing goals.

Student Sharing

Once students have had the chance to work on their own writing, I always give them the last ten minutes of the session to share. Sometimes I will give everyone a chance to read their favorite paragraph or scene aloud to the entire class, and other times I will ask them to share their writing with a partner. The purpose of sharing is for students to learn from each other and receive constructive feedback. I try to make sure to praise a few things that the student did well, and I might point out one area for improvement. I also encourage students to share what they liked about their classmates’ writing.

Providing constructive feedback requires delicacy. I’ve made a narrative writing peer revision activity to help students provide specific feedback to their peers. There is no prep work required, and it even includes a rubric that can be used to grade any narrative writing assignment. You can create your own peer revision guide, but if you want a resource that has already done the work for you, check out my narrative writing peer revision activity here.

Final Thoughts

Adding structure and routines to your creative writing workshops helps your students know what to expect and makes your lesson planning easier. try adding check-ins, mini lessons, independent practice, and sharing to your next writing workshop.

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