Tompkins, Ch. 2: Writing Workshop

Tompkins, Ch. 2: Writing Workshop

Writing workshop provides an excellent framework for the in-service teachers to implement the process-based approach. The great benefit of writing workshop is “that children become familiar with the ebb and flow of the writing process and experience the exhilaration that all authors feel as they publish their writing and share it with readers” (Tompkins, 2008, p. 34). The salient feature of writing workshop is ownership and collaboration. Students choose the topics, create ideas, monitor their writing process, and seek out guidance from their peers and a teacher as they write while the teacher as a facilitator providing scaffolded assistance. Thus the ambience of classrooms can be facilitating and engaging. In this regard, the writing workshop approach provides students with both constructive and humanistic learning opportunities. As Hyland (2003) aptly noted, writing is “essentially learnt, not taught, and the teacher’s role is to be nondirective and facilitating, assisting writers to express their own meanings through an encouraging and cooperative environment with minimal interference” (p. 13).

Response to Sohee Kim

I agree that “the goal of writer’s workshop is to get students to develop the same though processes as real writers and make most students are no longer afraid of writing or blocked by a blank sheet of paper through writing workshop (Peyton et all.,1994)”. One of the most salient features of writing workshop is that it can provide a learning environment that is supportive and non-threatening. When students’ emotional, affective barriers are lowered, they are more likely to be creative and confident in their own writing and learning process as well. In these cooperative and collaborative, the teacher guides the students and does not have to tell every bit of information as a master as often required in traditional EFL writing class.

Sources

Hyland, K. (2003). Genre-based pedagogies: A social response to process. Journal of

             Second Language Writing, 12, 17-29.

Tompkins, Gail E. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper

             Saddle River, NJ: Pearson