A Writers Handbook
Table of Contents
Writers Workshop & The Writing Process. . . . . . . . . . . 2
Steps in the Writing Process:Pre-Writing/Brainstorming. . . 3
Steps in the Writing Process:First Draft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Steps in the Writing Process:Revising. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Steps in the Writing Process:Editing/Proofreading. . . . . . . 6
Steps in the Writing Process:Publishing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Writing Process-Putting it Altogether. . . . . . . . . . . 8
Now What? Different Genres of Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Peer Editing Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
WRITERS WORKSHOP
&
THE WRITING PROCESS
Writers Workshop focuses on the idea of giving
students an extended amount
of time to write and improve
their writing skills. The students are working authors,
and the teacher is the professional, guiding students
towards becoming stronger
writers. There is less focus
on practicing skills individually, and more focuses on
bringing everything together. Writers Workshop follows the same format; mini
lesson, status of the class,
writing time, and sharing
time. (See table below for a
more detailed explantion of
each part of workshop time.)
The more time students have
to craft and confer about a
piece of writing, the more
improvment will be seen!
This handbook will help take
you through the writing process that will be used within
each writers workshop lesson. The writing process is 5
steps that writers take each
of their writings through.
It will focus on pre-writing,
rough drafts, editing, revising, and publishing. This will
be a great resource for you to
keep on hand!
Writers Workshop Schedule!
15-20 minutes
Mini-Lesson
40 minutes
Independent Writing
Conferring
Peer Editing
10 minutes
Share/Reflection
Steps in the Writing Process
Step One: Pre-Writing/Brainstorm
The first thing all good
writers do is brainstorm a list
of ideas. Some writers make
lists, webs, draw pictures, etc.
to get their thoughts out on
paper. Sometimes writers are
giving specific topics they
have to write about, and other
times they get to choose. Either way, it is important to get
all of your ideas out on paper before starting your first
draft. During this stage of the
writing process it is important
to keep your auidence in mind,
who are you writing this for?
Student Tip!
I really enjoy brainsto
rming! I draw a torn
adao and then I list al
l of my ideas off of
the
tornado. Think of a
tornado blowing ever
ything around! Thats
what it is like when yo
u
have tons of ideas go
ing around in your he
ad!
CC
Steps in the Writing Process
Step Two: First Draft
The next part in the writing process is called your first
draft. This is when you take
your ideas from brainstorming
and turn them into sentences
and paragraphs to create a
piece of writing that flows.
This draft will have mistakes,
and that is okay! The next two
steps in the writing process
will help us out in that area.
Just focus on taking your ideas
and forming them into a logical sequence.
nt
e
d
u
t
S
Tip!
draft I
g my rough
in
it
r
w
m
facts
a
When I
rmation or
fo
in
y
m
f
o
all
d g roup
write down
through an
k
c
a
b
o
g
I
make
first. Then
together to
ts
c
fa
d
n
a
tion
. BV
my informa
make sense
my writing
Steps in the Writing Process
Step Three: Revising
In this step of the writing process you take a closer look at your
piece of writing. You can revise your
work by yourself, but sometimes it
is better to have a teacher, parent, or
peer go through it.
When revising, the goal is to
see if there is unnecessary information within your writing or if there
is information in your writing that
is missing to help tell your story.
This is where you add or take away
sentences or paragraphs. This is also
the time to find better word choice,
or different ways of saying something.
Student
Tip!
sing I think of
When I am revi
ARMS...
s and words
A-add sentence
s you dont need
ds or sentence
R-remove wor
d or placement
M-move a wor
of a sentence
es EB
ces for new on
ords or senten
S-substitute w
Steps in the Writing Process
Step Four: Editing/Proofreading
The fourth step in the writing process is editing, or proofreading. The purpose of this
step in the writing process is to
look for spelling, grammar, and
capitalization, and punctuation
mistakes. These types of mistakes can take away from your
quailty of writing. It is very important to keep these mistakes to
a minimum!
Are you ready for step 5?
Student
Tip!
Whe
n Im
U-us
editi
ng m
y pap
er I u
age,
n
C-ca
ouns
pital
nctu
S-sp
PS to
izatio
and v
erbs
P-pu
are u
ation
ellin
g
IL
se CU
sed c
orrec
help
tly
me!
Steps in the Writing Process
Step Five: Publishing
Weve finally reach the
final step in the writing process, publishing! When publishing you are finalizing your
piece of writing. You have
finished making corrections
through revising and editing
and now you have to decide
how you are going to share
the final copy. The best part
is now you can share it with
everyone!
p!
i
Student T
I love being able to share my published
work! A good reminder is to keep your
audience in mind when you decide how you
want to publish your final writing!
MD
What does it look like when you put it altogether?
THE WRITING PROCESS
Now What?
Now that you have a better under- facts and details to support the authors
standing of the writing process and how topic. You see this type of writing in
it fits into writers workshop, lets look at books, magazines, newspapers, etc.
what you could write about!
Opinion or argumentative writing
There is a variety of different genres is when the author gets to express their
writers can choose from when deciding
personal thoughts and beliefs on a topic
what he or she wants to write about. Nar- or subject. Authors still have to do some
rative writing, informative or explanatory research with this type of writing. He
writing, opinion or argumentative writing, or she needs facts and details to support
and poetry and the most common writing their opinion. With this genre of writing
genres. Each of these
an authors persongenres serves a differality really shines
ent purpose.
through!
Narrative writ Last, but not
ing lets you tell a story
least, poetry! Poetry
from your perspective,
has always been a
making it a personal
great way for anynarrative. These stoone to express their
ries are always fun
thoughts and feelto write because the
ings. There are so
author gets to tell
many different types
about an experience
of poems and forthey had from their
mats that authors
eyes. Authors can also create imaginacan follow. Poetry is another very cretive narratives. This is that they make it ative writing genre, and it is fun!
up. Creating a story from scratch, making
So, what genre sparks your interthe characters, and decided what is goests? What do you want to write about?
ing to happen can be fun and exciting for The possibilities are endless. Grab a penauthors. Lots of creativity goes into the cil, your notebook, and lets start taking
story!
a piece of writing through the writing
Informative or explanatory writing process!
is when the author wants to inform his or
her audience about something. This type
of writing involves researching to find 9
Peer Editing Check List
Use the following form to peer edit another students writing.
Authors Name: ______________________________________
Editors Name: _______________________________________
Checklist Items
I read the authors
piece aloud to see
where to stop or
pause.
Quotation marks
are included where
needed.
After
completing
each step,
place a check
here.
Comments
I checked for capitals at hte beginning
of sentences.
Proper nouns begin
with capital letters.
There are no run-on
sentences.
10
Created By: Jessica Swope
