The Workshop Way

These four signs hang in my dyad classroom and I really like the message they send. I love how they promote the classroom as a safe place to explore and learn by taking risks and making mistakes. My teacher got them from a program called "The Workshop Way." It was developed by a nun, who was a teacher, as a total curriculum, but my teacher only uses pieces of it. I notice that the values the program stresses, supporting students in positive ways through the language you use and noticing their small efforts toward the end you want instead of what they aren't doing right, are practiced in her classroom every day. It is a very supportive classroom where she believes in each and every child.

One part of Workshop Way that she uses are vocabulary lists. Each group of 40 words will appear on four lists in different ways. The first is just a list of words. Another uses the words in phrases while one list has the words so that the students have to match up rhyming pairs or related or opposite words. Each morning she calls students back to read their lists to her. She requires students to look at her when they say the first three items on the list. She is trying to promote several behaviors through this activity. One is teaching the kids to make eye contact when they speak to someone, and I could see how this came into play when they made a visit to a nursing home the other day. The students looked at the residents as they spoke to them during an art project. The other is that every student will have her attention and be looked directly at by the teacher. On the days I take over this morning routine for her, I love getting to connect with each student briefly first thing in the day. The third is the responsibility of taking the sheets home, reading them, and bringing them back the next day. She makes sure to praise students for remembering to bring back the sheet. And lastly, the students are building their vocabulary and fluency.

I think this activity would be harder to do with a more diverse level of abilities. This class is mostly reading at grade level or higher so they all use the same set of lists. The few students who are below grade level have a harder time, but they seem to manage ok. Although, I wonder how helpful it is for them to read a list of random words out of context. I would think this would be even harder for ELL students (which she doesn't have). Also, her students are very good at being self-directed and moving through their morning tasks while she is focused on kids reading their lists. Part of this is a culture in the school that supports and expects this from K on up. I'm sure some of it is also how she sets up the expectations at the beginning of the school year and establishes the class routines.

This gives me some interesting things to think about when I set up my own classroom. How will I connect with kids each and every day? How will I establish a morning routine? How will I support my students in positive ways? How will I promote responsibility?