Dr. JAC's Reading/Writing Workshop Primer

by Joyce Armstrong Carroll

Joyce Armstrong Carroll has done it again! Bringing together over four decades of teaching with her ability to put her finger on the pulse of what is needed in the profession, Dr. JAC's Reading/Writing Workshop Primer is a big little book packed with nuts and bolts information necessary to design and sustain reading/writing workshop for any grade level K-12. Framed simply into seven substantive introduction, definition, organization, setting it up, tracking teaching, assessment, this primer concludes with suggested sources, a plethora of annotated reference waiting to become part of any school's professional library. Yet, while offering techniques, models, and tips, Carroll is clear–workshop offers choices–choices for the teacher and choices for the student. While there is no way to "do" workshop, this primer invites the novice as well as the experienced to range around its pages for ideas. Innovative strategies such as "Reading Memory Quires" and "Literacy Letters," distinctions made and examples given for the many ways to assess the aspects of workshop, models for creating a workshop that works are among the features in this helpful teacher resource.

133 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2002

Reviews

[Carly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This should not really be considered a 'book'. A pamphlet, or a brochure, maybe, but I don't even know if it even has the number of pages/words per page needed to be considered a novella. It has good information in it, some parts, but there are no more than 100 words per page. The actual 'workshop' stuff ends on page 100, the rest are graphic organizers and PICTURES that are too small to regenerate, anyway. The book talks about things we should do in my classroom, and I guess I would sum up the R/W Workshop to "Independent Practice". I feel like that what it tells me is a workshop is simply what I do in class already. It seems natural to me that different students are working on different things. I perhaps am too harsh on the book because it tells me that my want/need for students to behave and pay attention is a need for "sameness". I would LOVE to put my students in groups, however, they cannot be in groups without talking (undoubtedly a fault of mine). In short, I would LOVE to have my classroom look like the classroom in this book...I am an AVID reader, and I will write, but I simply do not know how to take this theory and put it into reality of my classroom.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very, very brief overview of the elements of a reading or writing workshop. Unfortunately, I'm discovering that many teachers find it pretty much useless in actually establishing workshops in their classrooms.

Ugh.