Team J's Second Grade Fun: Publishing Pieces - Writing Workshop Wednesdays

If you missed the first five parts of Writing Workshop Wednesdays...click below to catch up.

Why Writing Workshop?

WW Set-Up and Products

Typical Writing Workshop Format

Mini-Lesson Ideas

Teaching Editing

Today I'm going to share with you how I have students publish pieces during Writing Workshop. This is the way I handled publishing when I did not have the Units of Study by Lucy Calkins.

Publishing:

Draft example - pre-editing:

So, to start, students completed the editing process with their rough draft (which I discussed in my post last week). After they edited, students then got their final draft paper. It looks similar to their rough draft paper, but it has a box for a picture to accompany their final draft. Our first time publishing, I model what to do so students understand they need to re-write their draft neatly, and they also need to include the changes they made through the editing process. This takes a bit for younger kiddos to understand. After modeling and going over it explicitly, it's time for the kids to publish their own pieces.

After they have finished writing neatly, adding the revisions, and drawing their picture to match their story, I give them their cover page. I keep this simple - and just give them a blank, white piece of paper. Nothing fancy. On the cover, they write their title, who the author is, and draw a cover to match their story. While this seems simple with just a blank page, I like this because it gives kids a chance to be creative and design their cover to their liking.

Sharing:

The next part is a favorite of most of the kids - sharing! As we know, kids love to talk and love to share. Another part I've added to publishing and finishing a piece, is sharing it with the class when you're finished. I do have all kids share because I think it's important for everyone to work on public speaking skills, feel comfortable sharing, and it's important that they feel proud of their work. I often have students share it under the document camera so that it is projected on the board. This way students in the audience can see the pictures and writing. I also have had kids sit in my fancy teacher chair and read it to the class like a book, pausing to show the pictures like I do during read alouds. Both ways work great and the kids really like sharing their work with each other.

After a student finishes sharing their story, we all applaud. Then, I have the audience think of compliments for the student sharing. The student sharing gets to pick two students to tell them a compliment. We also practice saying thank you when we receive a compliment and working on our manners.