“Writing And Thinking Faculty Guidebook”
FACULTY GUIDEBOOK
Modified slightly from text developed at
Bard College of Simon’s Rock (2017) and reprinted with permission from Joan DelPlato, 2024
INTRODUCTION TO TEACHER GUIDEBOOK FOR WRITING AND THINKING WORKSHOP
By Valeri J. Thomson, Former Principal BHSEC Queens
The Bard Writing & Thinking program was developed in the early 1980s at Bard College with Peter Elbow and Paul Connolly as the primary scholars. Their mission was to create an opportunity for students to practice writing as a means of developing their thought. Classroom sessions were structured such that ideas could be expressed in writing, read aloud, and then enhanced through feedback from fellow students.
Over the past 30 years the techniques have been developed, tweaked, and modified to suit different needs. Each year they are used on the Bard campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; at Bard College at Simons Rock in Great Barrington, MA; and at the Bard High School Early Colleges in New York City, Newark, Cleveland, Baltimore, New Orleans, D.C. and The Hudson Valley to provide a basis for exploring and expanding thought.
In Queens, we have developed four separate anthologies, one for each cohort, 9th, 10th, Year 1 and Year 2. We anticipate adding and subtracting from these over time so that we find pieces that work particularly well for each age group and help to introduce students to the year they are about to begin. Faculty advisors and students will have an opportunity to learn more about each other during workshop week and will remain together as an advisory group throughout the year.
The text that follows was developed as a faculty guide for Bard College at Simon’s Rock faculty members and given to us to use as a guidebook for our faculty, to modify as we find appropriate for our younger audience. I am sure you will find the material that follows helpful as you create an individual workshop experience for your advisees. As you develop prompts for your particular group we encourage sharing those prompts.
Bard High School Early College
WRITING AND THINKING WORKSHOP:
A TEACHER GUIDEBOOK
CONTENTS
Observations from Former Workshop Teachers 3
Introduction by Joan DelPlato 5
What is the Writing and Thinking Workshop? 6
The Basic Techniques and Terms: Definitions and Uses
Free-writing (FW) 7
Focused Free-writing (FFW) 8
Sprint or Loop Writing 8
Process Writing and Process Notes (PNs) 9
Response Journal (RJ) 10
The Reader: Its Design and Function 10
Sharing; The Read-Around; The Thought Chain 10
Passing; The Apology 12
Reading Directly from the Page 12
Believing and Doubting 12
Dialogue Writing 13
Small Group Critique for Paper Revision: Steps 1, 2, 3 + 13
Poetry Play 15
Text Explosion 16
Rendering 17
Silent Walk: 18
Writing in Response to Music 18
Writing in Response to Visual Art 18
Writing in Response to Film 18
The “Letter” to the Workshop Leader 20
The Academic, Social, Guidance Support Tour 21
The Polished Piece of Prose PPP (with Process Notes) 21
Celebratory Reading 21
Planning the Week
Early in the Week 22
Mid-Week 22
End of the Week 23
Planning a day 23
Writing &Thinking, Eating & Resting; Breaks 24
Punctuality and Attendance 24
Variety 24
Variety: Large-Group and Small-Group Work 25
Variety: Indoors and Outdoors 25
Variety: Seriousness and Fun 25
Variety: Being Alone and Together 25
Homework 25
Flexibility: Taking Cues from Students; Listening; Revising25
Planning an Exercise 26
Parting Advice to New Workshop Leaders from Your Colleagues 27
Goals for Workshop Leaders 28
Revised Edition, June 2024
OBSERVATIONS FROM WORKSHOP TEACHERS:
“Although I never anticipated working with students of this teenage demographic, I have found that the students I've taught at BHSEC have been among the most inspiring, dedicated, and passionate l have ever encountered. Every day, I get to see students experience the joy and pain of learning something new, and I am grateful to work with a group of students who are so open to and invested in this process. Similarly, I am grateful to work for an institution whose pedagogical commitments I so strongly believe in. The training I received during the Writing and Thinking workshop has literally changed the way I think about teaching and learning. I've learned to be much more patient with the students during class time, allowing time and space for students to think and write through problems as we discuss them in class. I've learned that these strategies teach students how to see writing as a tool, a joy, and a site of discovery, rather than simply an academic chore. In the BHSEC classroom, I am given the freedom and the support by my administration and my colleagues to try out new approaches and to think outside my own expectations. The experience I've gained at BHSEC has allowed me to explore and develop my pedagogy much more than I ever did in a traditional academic setting.” (Danielle LaSusa, February 2014)
“As I was unfamiliar with the reading material and unfamiliar with workshop style and strategies, I was very confused at the end of the first day of teacher training. I had trouble identifying the focus of our activities. Being the only teacher from the science division further compounded my feeling of alienation. […] Looking back, I realize that I was paralyzed by apprehension and anxiety at the beginning of the preparation period. The actual workshop turned out very well, as I was able to incorporate many of the innovation exercises suggested, and to draw on my experience of having led the workshop in previous years. I always believe that having faculty members from different disciplines in the workshop exemplifies Simon’s Rock’s philosophy. I am grateful that students in my group responded very positively to my participation” (Isaac Bao, 30 August 1992).
“The most rewarding part of workshop for me was getting to know the group of students both as a group and as INDIVIDUALS. I have never taught a class before where I got to know every single student. […] Through the various activities (small groups, individual conferences, letters to the workshop leader), I got to know each person. I feel like my students appreciated the egalitarianism of the venture, and when I did the homework myself, the results were very good. They certainly responded to the fact that I was like one of them” (John Weinstein, 11 October 2001).
“The best part of the W&T Workshop for me was the opportunity to get together with colleagues, and to face together the prospect of this intensive experience with the freshmen. All the (often useful) details aside, this was the one thing that stood out for me. For my students, I think the best thing was twofold: 1) to get to meet a college teacher up close and personal and to realize it can be a relaxing, enjoyable connection; and 2) to come to see writing as something pleasant, entertaining and fun AND as something very useful to one’s success in college” (Gabriel Asfar, 4 September 2001).
“Now as to goals of workshop as I see them: first, to help the new students feel secure and confident about their writing, which of course is not very good (with a few outstanding exceptions) in order to make them feel receptive to the more rigorous challenges to come; second, to help them feel that they have a place at SR by first establishing a strong collegiality in the small group; third, to introduce them to activities that will be useful to them in one way or another in their regular coursework. There are other, more specific goals, but let this suffice for now” (Natalie Harper, 30 August 1992).
“As always, the workshop was exhausting but exhilarating. I had students tell me it was the best week of their lives, no exaggeration, and that certainly is rewarding to hear” (Jenny Browdy de Hernandez, 25 August 2001).
“I think the consistent subject of the week was something like ‘Here and There,’ comparisons between what they’d accomplished so far in being here and how much they wanted from the future. Somewhere between the two they, of course, exist in that eternal present of adolescence, but I think they went away with some idea of how much they could do to shape it on their own” (Peter Filkins, 30 August 1992).
“I became extraordinarily involved with the writing process myself. I had a wonderful time devoting so much energy to reading and writing. […] I found the whole event fantastic. I enjoyed the fact that you [as new directors] were struggling as much as we were [as new teachers]” (Karen Beaumont, September 1992).
“I do recommend a sabbatical year following the workshop; it makes it a much more relaxed experience” (Jim Monsonis, 2 September 1998).
Introduction (excerpted and modified slightly with permission) from Joan DelPlato, Workshop Director, 1998-2006
When I first came to Simon’s Rock in 1987 I had much to learn about my role as a teacher at an alternative college. A product of large-scale university education, I had succeeded in the conventional modes of education, offering material which I expected to pass on to future students with little attention as to how I was teaching. Gradually I discovered that it was necessary to let go of some of the premises of conventional education and lose some of its regimen in order to encourage in my students a love of learning and of writing. I was not an English professor, but my own participation as a teacher in workshop gradually reawakened my own delight in writing, something I had forgotten in the intensity of my graduate program in art history. Teaching in workshop, especially in training with my peers to become a teacher of incoming First-Year Students, became a way to rekindle the pleasure of pen in hand writing on clean paper, a foundational practice of intellectual inquiry. I discovered how valuable workshop was to me as a maturing teacher, and because of my own experience I could recognize its value for the students I have taught over the years.
A Guidebook for Faculty: This manual has been designed to supplement the two half days of classroom preparation, led by the workshop directors for 9th, 10th YR1 and YR2 group training. These sessions, which precede your teaching of a section of workshop, are fundamentally about preparing you to plan and execute productive contact with your section of workshop. In the two days in September that we prepare for workshop, you will become more familiar with the anthology of texts and will work with colleagues to consider scripts and to standardize levels of assignments. We often move quickly through a lot of material. Choose the exercises and activities that appeal to you and also allow you to acquaint students with the fundamentals of workshop.
For many years several faculty at Simon’s Rock knew that the Writing and Thinking Workshop was, like the college itself, an extraordinary opportunity for younger college students. Workshop offered younger college students the chance to make a new connection to writing, one fully usable in their classes and beyond. The older philosophy about how a faculty member learns to teach in the Writing and Thinking Workshop was to have her take on the role of a student and be led through the exercises by the director in much the same way that she would lead her section of students a few days later; fundamentally she learned to be a workshop teacher by being a workshop student. This style of training circumvented theoretical discussion and immersed the teacher in varied writing experiences; over time and with reflection, workshop’s implicit theories would emerge. But today it is clear that there is also value in making available an explicit statement of workshop principles and methods, directly addressing issues of pedagogy. Indeed teacher training has become a place where teachers directly experience specific exercises considering in depth its logistics – but also its educational theory.
New workshop teachers have asked for this manual to be produced in an attempt to pass along some of the unique culture that has become a standard at the Bard Early Colleges. At the same time, this manual can be used by experienced teachers who want to review basic concepts and refresh their own understanding of what it means to teach workshop. Workshop principles and the Bard culture have evolved. The kind of writing and thinking expected from students at all of Bard’s early colleges has evolved from the highly personal to more text-based analysis, from an emphasis on language arts to a shared focus on social studies, sciences and the arts. This manual is in effect a “snapshot” of where workshop is now. Its production does not imply that the creativity of teachers and their students be codified or made static. Instead the pedagogy and writing prompts described herein are intended as a springboard for teachers’ and students’ own reworking of workshop principles. In turn, by providing the rationale for these activities I hope that teachers will refine and rework some of the basic principles of an Early College education as they continue to evolve at all the Bard early college campuses.
In my own work in the Writing and Thinking Workshop, both my students and my colleagues have made the experience meaningful for me. In teaching in workshop over the years, I have learned to enjoy teaching more. I am grateful to have had this kind of teaching environment. Workshop activities have enriched my teaching in the academic classroom, in teaching my own subject area and the general education seminars, and my colleagues have incited that development. Integrated throughout this manual are comments from some of SR’s faculty, culled from letters they have written to the workshop directors at the end of workshops. I include them to suggest to the reader how workshop is a collaborative experience that has deepened over the last two decades.
What is the Writing and Thinking Workshop?
The intensive workshop is an academic approach to orientation for new and returning. It is an introduction to the values of the college, and it serves several functions.
Socially, it provides students with a personalized, extended welcome to the campus. It allows them the opportunity to forge friendships with other students, staff, and faculty. It provides peer-group support in the classroom and encourages the expression of ideas in verbal and written form. The Writing and Thinking Workshop gives students time to practice time-management before the semester actually begins: balancing the creation and development of their social life with fulfilling the academic requirements of the early college program.
Academically, it serves as an introduction to the rhythm of the school year by providing a structure of required attendance in class and regular homework. The workshop marks an important foundation in the structuring of “a Bard Early College experience.” It introduces interaction with texts and becoming an active participant in the learning process, which continues throughout all courses at BHSEC. The workshop is designed to convey the message that writing and critical analysis skills are fundamental to success at Bard. Additionally, it is designed to convey that though its goals are serious ones, the tenor of the workshop is often playful and exciting. And students frequently produce some good, creative work.
Faculty who teach in the workshop lead a section of the workshop and participate in the final Celebratory Reading is usually scheduled for the final two sessions of workshop. Faculty are also expected to attend all training for the two and a half days before the students arrive and late afternoon faculty meetings once workshop begins.
Workshop goals are larger and more important than any single activity. Jamie Hutchinson advises distinguishing means from ends: “Workshop isn’t about having a bag full of Monday morning tricks. It’s about developing a different orientation toward learning and the culture of the classroom” (6 September 2002). That ideal culture of the classroom toward which we aspire is student-centered and encourages active learning and respect for the processes that contribute to learning. Workshop encourages students to learn within the supportive community of the classroom by speaking, writing, and thinking together to supplement the more traditional mode of learning alone. Since teachers participate in the writing activities along with students, the boundaries occasionally blur between students and teacher. Fundamentally, workshop promotes the practice of “writing as a tool for coming to a fundamental understanding of a topic and how one comes to know about it” (Matthew Deady, physics faculty member Bard College)
The Basic Techniques and Terms: Definitions; Uses in Workshop and After
Free-writing (or the FW) is the activity of putting pen to paper and keeping the pen moving. Students are encouraged to write “freely,” that is, without worry about the success or even the formalities of writing. It is meant to encourage thinking on paper. In workshop we begin EVERY morning by free-writing for about ten minutes. As the first activity of the day, it is a good way to wake up, get focused on the present, transition into the work of workshop, warm up for writing, and establish an association between writing and relaxation. Typically the FW is for the students’ own use and is not read aloud (shared). This fact should be mentioned at your first meeting with them. However, by about the middle of workshop week, you might ask whether a few students might want to read one of their FWs or an excerpt of it to encourage listeners to expand the limits of their conception of what constitutes Free-writing and to broaden their own understanding of the uses to which it may be put. (It could be useful to students to hear this rationale for “opening up” the FW.) Because this type of writing is often highly personal and because its premise is that it is for the students’ own use, encourage your students to fold in half any free-writing they would rather you, their workshop leader, not read when they submit their journals for your perusal.
There is only one rule for FWs: Keep the pen moving. If students comment that they can’t think of anything to FW about or if you see that they are stuck, ask them to write about being unable to write. Or start with the words “Freewriting” or “No, no, no,” or “I’m too tired to think today,” and see where it leads.
Peter Elbow lists several functions of the FW for the writer in Writing with Power. These include getting practice in: putting ideas to words (one of the hardest parts of doing a writing assignment); separating the creating of one’s writing from its analysis; getting started; acquiring practice in dropping some of the self-consciousness of writing; writing when you aren’t in the mood; writing to release distracting feelings; coming up with topics to write about; and improving your writing in the long run, even though an individual piece of FW may not seem useful in itself (pp. 14-17).
Incidentally, free-writing at a computer is fine outside of workshop, and some students find this is a very effective means for gathering impressions in writing a longer paper or in recording a daily journal. However, while they are in the W&T Workshop, students are encouraged to keep a hand-written journal in the interest of providing the class with the common experience of writing with the same tools. For a homework assignment one night you might want to have students enter a free-write into a computer and then ask them to consider their different tactile and cognitive responses to each medium.
Focused Free-writing (FFW) is like a FW in that it is a record students produce that is mostly free-associative and can’t be done “incorrectly.” However, unlike a FW a FFW is written in response to a prompt or a topic issued by the class’s workshop leader or in a classroom assignment during the regular academic year. The FFW gives the student a sense of her initial thoughts on a topic before she explores it further. A long FFW may well have a few “gems” that can be “mined” and “polished” at another point in the writing process. In preparation for working with Margaret Atwood’s poem, “Against Still Life,” you might ask students to write a FFW for 15 minutes on an orange (one you have brought from the Dining Hall and put in the center of the table). Then ask them to go back and read through their FFW, underlining the thoughts that intrigued them and about which they might want to say more. This is “mining” a FFW.
Sprint or Loop Writing is a series of interrelated FFWs. The “sprints” or “loops” might look at the same subject from several angles. Like a “sprint” in which a runner takes off from one point in a particular direction, only to return and start again, or a loop created by the agent arcing out with words only to reset her sights on the original goal, this type of writing is meant to generate ideas, any one of which might develop further thoughts in student writing. Peter Elbow writes:
For the first half, the voyage out, you do pieces of free-writing during which you allow yourself to curve out into space — allow yourself, that is, to ignore or forget exactly what your topic is. For the second half, the voyage home, you bend your efforts back into the gravitational field of your original topic as you select, organize, and revise parts of what you produced during the voyage out” (WWP, p. 60).
He further offers thirteen strategies for prompting loops -- writing one’s first impressions, prejudices, lies, errors, dialogues, narrative thinking, stories, portraits, scenes, the instant version of a story, and varying the audience, time frame, or writer (WWP, p.77). Building upon these principles, more specific examples of loops could be: asking students to give voice to the thoughts of a silent character in a poem, shifting the authorial voice from a major to a minor character, or changing the poet’s language from that of 1851 to 2010. For writing “the voyage home” Elbow suggests thinking on paper as clearly as possible about the topic at hand and your audience, shaping some of the insights of the previous writing to fit what’s needed, recognizing that you will discard a lot. While the “voyage out” encourages intellectual flexibility and creative re-thinking of a particular topic, on the “return voyage” the writer considers applying her writing to the task at hand. Elbow further argues that Loop Writing is a strategy appropriate to an assignment in which you have no choice of topic or are not initially inspired by the assigned topic.
Process Writing (also called meta-writing) is self-reflexive writing. Students are asked to tell the story of how a piece of writing evolved, to recall the mental processes that took place for them as they wrote. For example, you might prompt students to do two very different kinds of writing--one analytical and one personal—in response to an essay or a poem and then ask them to write a process on which type was easier, more comfortable, or more enjoyable to write and why. For another example, you might prompt your section with this: “Write a Process on our group activity of writing to music [described below], which we have just completed.” In response students might describe what they enjoyed most about the assignment, others might write about the impossibility of putting words to the ineffable. Some might say that this is the most enjoyable assignment of the whole workshop, others the most frustrating. A few students might notice the interaction of extraneous sounds in the classroom environment and the musical sounds. The nature of a piece of Process is open-ended.
Process writing encourages students to reflect upon an activity they have just finished and to recount some aspect/s of it. They may be asked to notice what worked well in their writing and thinking habits and what is still challenging for them. It attunes them to their strengths and weaknesses as writers and thinkers who are always learning about their own process, offering valuable information in the development of their writing. Its main goal is to have students become aware of their pathways to successful writing and to allow them to improve their writing skills.
Process writing can be an excellent way to synthesize (or redirect and possibly wrap-up) a class discussion. (“I am going to interrupt this discussion to ask you to write a Process on its most valuable/ instructive/ eye-opening aspects for you so far. I will ask you to share these with the class.”) Process writing can help crystallize and emphasize points in an open discussion or response to a reading assignment.
Process Notes (PNs) are an essential component of the Polished Piece of Prose (PPP) students are asked to complete by the end of workshop. Please help students prepare these by taking class time two or three times during the week and inquiring about the progress on the PPP. Here is a prompt that you might break into three settings: “Tell the story of the conception, gestation, and birth of this piece of writing.” Alternatively: “What were the easiest and most challenging parts of writing this paper for you?” Again: “What makes this paper a success?” “Now that you have finished writing this paper, if you had another week to revise, how would you change it?” Another idea is to write six or eight prompts on the board and ask students to choose to respond to one or two of them, or to cut and paste several.
The Response Journal (RJ) is a blank notebook (or sheets of paper clipped together) in which students compile their written responses, beginning with the first class meeting on Saturday afternoon. Student Life has notified students that they should bring their own RJ; it is not provided for them. (The campus Bookstore sells notebooks, and typically is open on Saturday, before workshop begins.) The RJ is not typed, though some students choose to use a word processor to complete and print out their nightly assignments, which can then be inserted into the RJ.
From the first full day of workshop, students should be encouraged to use the two- (later the three-) column format. Into the first column goes the direct quotation from the text which the student has selected. Into the second column goes the student’s response to that quotation. This second column may be further broken into a second and third column, which can reflect further refinements of the student’s impressions. For example, the second column might contain “First Thoughts” and the third column “Second Thoughts.” When considering visual or verbal language, the student might use the second column to “Describe” the text in the first column and the third column to further “Analyze” the text. Another suggestion is to use column two for “Making Observations” and column three for “Drawing Implications”/ “Asking Questions.” You might offer students the option of using two (or three) colors of ink, if they find the vertical column format unwieldy.
For every assignment written in class and for homework, ask students to date and clearly label it. This will teach them the principles of workshop more readily, and it will make their writing easier for them (and for you) to access.
The Reader: Its Design and Function
The Readers are a compilation of Writing and Thinking Workshop texts—poems, short stories, excerpts, essays, articles, and math puzzles. The texts are intended as stimuli to student writing and group activities. Each year the workshop leaders have an opportunity to add to or delete texts that work well or have trouble fitting into the workshop.
Sharing; the Read-around; Sporadic sharing; the Thought Chain. These refer to methods of reading aloud student writing in the classroom. Sharing is the most general term; it helps set the tone for how reading one’s work aloud means giving a piece of one’s self to the group. It is a social activity, one that is to be reciprocated. The simple and gracious workshop tradition is that the section leader responds to a piece of writing that has been read aloud by making eye contact with the student and saying, “Thank you.” These responses are intended to acknowledge the student effort without judging it. Perhaps this seems disingenuous at times. It can be difficult to conceal one’s enthusiasm for a piece of student writing which was deeply affective or disturbing. There is indeed a tension in so simple a response as “thank you.” And it suggests that there might be a deeper tension in workshop between support and criticism of student writing. Jamie Hutchinson has acknowledged this: “Part of the struggle of workshop is how to validate them – their voices, their language, their questions and ideas – without misleading them into thinking that whatever they say is beyond questioning” (6 September 2002).
Occasionally you might want to respond to a read-around by simply repeating a phrase or two of the student’s writing which you noted. After a few class meetings in which you have issued the thank you’s, ask students to thank their colleagues. For example, at the start of a read-around you might ask the reader’s neighbor on the right to issue the “thank you” on behalf of the group.
Peter Elbow argues that free-writing and sharing are the two most powerful tools students can employ to improve their own writing. This is a remarkable claim for two seemingly simple practices (WWP, p. 24). Sharing, he writes, helps train your ear for the writing you like, thereby encouraging its imitation and improving your own writing. Sharing encourages you to make the solitary activity of writing a social activity, making it more enjoyable. When the writer knows that sharing his work does not require feedback from the listener, he or she can concentrate on the business of writing without having to deal with the burden of handling responses (pp. 20-24).
Particularly at the beginning of workshop week—and definitely in the first class meeting—leaders may want to have every student “share.” Students will take their own writing more seriously if they know that it will be heard by the entire class. This “read-around” is systematic sharing. Its value is that the leader doesn’t have sole authority to keep naming a student to read; students regulate their own beginnings and endings and cede the floor to each other. After the convention has been established, workshop leaders may decide that it’s sufficient to have just a few students “share” a particular piece of writing (sporadic sharing) to give the class an idea of how students responded to a prompt but avoid taking the time to hear every respondent.
The thought chain is an excellent way to revitalize sharing if it becomes hum-drum. One student begins the chain by simply reading aloud her response to the prompt. All students will read their responses before the exercise is over. But the challenge is that the second and subsequent students find ways to connect to the previous speaker by (1) paraphrasing the previous speaker using the phrase “I hear you (or “Jim”) saying…” and then (2) adding the conjunction “but” or “and” as connector to (3) reading their own piece of writing. You might ask students to write a Process on how the thought-chain differed from sharing in a read-around. They will observe that they listen much more carefully to each other’s writing since they are required to synthesize it and compare it to the kernel of their own thought. When it works well, students are riveted to the writing of their peers. You can hear a pin drop in the attentive silences this exercise can engender.
Discussion leaders should share their writing, at least a piece of it, at every read-around, though this is sometimes difficult when anticipating the next activity. Sharing one’s writing as a teacher is a powerful way for the boundary between student and faculty to be blurred meaningfully. Particularly when the leader feels his/her writing is lackluster, it’s important to share the writing with students to alleviate any pressure they may feel to share only their stellar pieces of writing. It also develops our empathy for what’s at stake in the activity of sharing.
Passing; forgoing the apology. Encourage students to avoid apologizing before they read. This allows students to take responsibility for the words they use (Peter Elbow, WWP, p. 22); it also saves precious class time. Sometimes a student will ask to pass when it is his/her turn to share. Think about what limits (perhaps up to a maximum of once per day, although consider using the policy only if it becomes an issue) you want to grant to “passing.” (See Colette van Kerckvoorde’s comment on this at the end of this Guidebook). Often on Day 1 a student will preface his/her sharing with an apology that it’s not the best, or there is some problem with what the group is about to hear. If this becomes an issue in class, you might ask students to write a FFW on why they think it’s become standard workshop policy to ask students not to apologize before they read aloud.
Reading directly from the page. At first students may want to paraphrase the written piece they have just produced. Encourage your students instead to read verbatim. This is important for several reasons: it validates the process of writing as an extension of thinking; it offers the student the opportunity to hear her own writing; it invites the group into the writer’s process of thinking on paper; it gives the student the opportunity to practice a form of public speaking/ performance, one which prepares them for the (quasi-) public speaking of the Celebratory Workshop.
Believing and Doubting is a classic W&T technique that can serve a variety of purposes. The prompts themselves are straightforward. Ask students to write a few sentences confirming an author’s viewpoint/ agreeing with it/ believing it. Share. Then ask students to argue with that same author as revealed in a piece of writing, disagreeing with it, or doubting it in some way. Share. The prompt can be tailored to the goals you have: believing and doubting an author, a character, a political position, a musician, poet, or artist or the “viewpoint” suggested by his or her artwork. This is a technique that often produces very interesting results, particularly if it is followed by the request to Process the writing exercise. A simple processing prompt is to ask the students to describe which point of view—believing or doubting—was harder for them to take in their writing and why.
Believing and Doubting can function simply as a fun exercise in role-playing, as might occur in an acting class. But for the time when the class consensus is firmly entrenched in a monolithic position on an issue, it can offer insights into other ways of considering an issue. For an individual student who “can’t understand” why a particular position can hold sway, it offers the possibility of a glimmer of understanding. Believing and doubting offers the opportunity for expanding the dimensions of one’s thinking.
Understandably, students may be wary about being asked to write in a way that counters their authentic beliefs. Ask them to consider the writing exercise as an intellectual challenge, a kind of “mental gymnastics.” It is like trying on a coat, which you can also take off again. Depending on the nature of the subject being considered, it might help to consider this a kind of playful writing. The exercise seems to work better after group trust has been established.
Dialogue Writing. Students are asked to compose a dialogue of two or more voices that interact for a few lines or a few pages. The voices can be those drawn from characters in a poem they read in workshop. Or perhaps they are the voices of imaginary characters based on the authors of two pieces from the Reader. When working with the genre of memoir, students may choose to have real or imagined family members interact in a dialog. You might ask students to write a dialog between Agassiz and Thoreau on the value of observation after reading their short pieces in the Reader. Collaborative dialogs can be written by two students, each taking a role and exchanging papers. This technique, like many used in workshop, can be used in both playful and serious ways. In either case writing in dialog allows students to enrich a more distanced analytical piece of writing by comparing two authors’ viewpoints.
The Small Group Critique (SGC) for Paper Revision is one of the techniques most strongly emphasized during workshop. It is based on the premise that students improve their writing by giving as well as receiving peer commentary. The SGC develops students’ listening skills, as they must rely on oral readings of the piece of writing being considered; the reader should read her/his piece more than once. Students also learn analytical skills within a group. Time is set aside to hear commentary by all participants, so students learn actively.
The end goal of the Small Group Critique is to teach skills for paper revision. No writer, student or professional, writes the best paper possible on the first draft. Revision is a process that serious writers must take seriously. Revision -- coming back to rethink one’s writing -- allows an idea to percolate, as it takes on a fuller, richer taste. (Sounds like coffee brewing.) Revision lets a writer live with her language for a while and return to it with new eyes. Others can aid with revision by helping “open it up” to fresh points of view. Having social interaction over the subject of one’s writing is a precious opportunity, as it expects that listeners will be focused, attentive, and supportive.
It is very effective to first present this method inductively, rather than as a pre-existing structure seemingly removed from student concerns. Try this mode of presentation the method. A volunteer, “Jennifer,” reads through her piece of writing twice. Ask the students to “be” Jennifer and to write a FFW from her point of view. “What kind of response would you, “wanna-be Jennifers,” like to have from us, your listeners, as you think about revising and expanding this piece of writing?” How would you like those responses given? For example, Jennifer might want to know whether her main point was clear. Or she might want to know which aspects of language worked. Or she might want to know what the unspoken emotion is in the piece of writing. Here you are asking students to step away for the moment from the details of Jennifer’s piece of writing and think about the attitudes of the listeners and the categories of analysis that they themselves might eventually employ in doing revision. As students share their responses to this prompt, take notes on their observations in a 3-part schema, which you gradually construct with them. It’s important that students think about why this schema looks the way it does, as verified by this workshop leader (whose comments anticipate the fuller description of the steps):
“I always find it useful to talk about the reasons behind some of the steps in the small group process: the need to hear one another’s words with precision, to formulate our own clear ideas of the piece at hand, to ask questions that seek to be as creative as they are inquiring, hopefully making the writer think of different directions in which to take the piece during revision” (Peter Filkins, 30 August 1992).
Step 1: POSITIVE POINTING “I noticed…” or “I liked…”
The writer, Jennifer, wants to be assured that her listeners have indeed been attentive and have heard her words carefully as she read them aloud. Listeners “give back” to Jennifer some of the noteworthy turns of phrase which struck them positively. In hearing these points, Jennifer gets some idea of the more powerful (and effective) phrases in her piece of writing. While the student writer is reading aloud, please have the rest of the class take notes on what they plan to say aloud to help and support the writer. EACH LISTENER READS THESE AS A LIST. Listeners should be directly quoting Jennifer at this point, saying her language back to her. Jennifer takes notes on these comments, perhaps by underlining the phrase or words that are said back to her. In response she simply thanks each listener. Though it may seem mechanical, there is method in this step. Beginning a critique by noting the positive in her work is a powerful way to establish a foundation of support for Jennifer. At the end of the stages, writers tend to confirm that hearing their words said back to them is a good experience.
Step 2: MAIN POINT “I hear you saying…”
Listeners at this stage of the Small Group Critique use their own words to paraphrase or interpret the piece they’ve heard. They may choose to synthesize the main idea of Jennifer’s piece of writing. Or they may want to articulate the subtler, perhaps unspoken aspects of her piece. Again Jennifer only listens and takes notes in response to this part of the activity.
Jennifer listens to be sure that what she thought was her main point was in fact communicated to members of the group. She also notes any confusion the listeners express in their responses.
Step 3: ACTIVE LISTENING “Have you considered…”
Here listeners ask concrete question about the ideas in the piece to provoke Jennifer into further thought about her writing. This is not open-ended conversation nor is it argument or defense. The focus of this stage is on Jennifer’s ideas, and it is designed to get her to think out loud about her draft. Listeners ask brief but leading questions in an even tone of voice to get Jennifer talking, musing, pondering her ideas. This is brain-storming, but its goal is to encourage Jennifer to follow her own direction rather than the listeners’; it’s a subtle difference. Questions and answers should stay focused on the piece at hand.
This tripartite organization of the method of SGC is one of the stricter traditions of workshop. After experiencing it, students should be encouraged to take note of what is valuable about the structure and why it survives basically unchanged in the history of workshop. (After they have worked with it for a few days, you might encourage them to notice how the structure can be expanded to accommodate variation.) When you model it the first time as a large group, you might want to ask students why the tradition is that the writer doesn’t speak during Stages 1 and 2 of her peers’ commentary. Why does Jennifer affect a sponge and simply, silently absorb?
WRITER’S QUESTIONS: There is another stage to the Small Group Critique process that may be employed at this point. Now the writer asks questions, LOTS OF QUESTIONS. What's confusing? What could be eliminated? What's lurking? What do you want to hear more about? What image comes to mind for the "voice" you hear in the piece? Where or when do I lose your interest? Which parts feel strongest to you? Where do I need more examples? And so on. Emphasize to students that it's important to do the other steps too, and to do them before trying out these more specific questions. In modeling this for the entire class, consider asking each student to write down one question (not a "yes-no" question) that might be useful for a writer to ask. Put these on the board for everyone to copy.
Small Group Critique is modeled at least once, preferably twice, in the class as a whole group with workshop leaders as guides. After that, students break into small groups, ideally of three (but four is sometimes necessary), two or three times in workshop week. Be sure to rotate the membership of the small groups. Always validate the small group work by requesting students return to the classroom and write a process piece on the experience they just had. Since a major goal of workshop is for students to work toward the completion of the Polished Piece which is revised in the small group, your process prompt really should ask students to note how the small group work has given them ideas for how to revise the paper, usually as homework, but you may want to offer them in-class time to work on this revision, given its importance for workshop.
Poetry Play is a category that covers many kinds of activities, especially if the definition of poetry is expanded to be "words arranged on the page," a definition Jamie Hutchinson borrowed from Kenneth Fields of Stanford, and a definition that liberates students from thinking of poetry as something with set rules. It also covers everything from sonnets to free verse. (Give students permission to avoid rhyming.) It may involve using a poem as a springboard for “analytical play.” You may have students begin their own “poem” by selecting words from a poem in the Reader and reworking them. When you approach a poem from the Reader for the first time, consider having it read aloud at least twice. Poetry play may have as its primary focus a deepened understanding of the poem under consideration, or it may function mostly as a springboard for students’ own explorations into language play.
There are some basic methods of poetry play that have worked well. One is the Chalkboard Poem. After a few students have read a poem aloud, silently rewrite its first line up high at the top of the chalkboard. Then write your own line, varied slightly, directly underneath. Without speaking, hand the chalk to another student, who hopefully will follow suit and write a line directly under yours with some variation and pass the chalk to another student until all have taken a turn. You may end the exercise here and dismiss for lunch or break. Or you may ask students to write a Process in response to what just happened. Another tried and true method is to write a Group Poem. This entails reading aloud a poem in the Reader as a model. Then ask each student to write the first line of a new poem, based on that poem. Then each student passes his/her paper to the right. You can have all students write a line to every poem. Or, as time permits, you might stop the activity after five or six lines have been supplied by five or six students. Have the author of the original line share.
Poetry play works well when you have an unexpected 15 or 30 minutes to fill before dismissal. Or when students have worked intensely and could benefit from a change of pace. Or on a hot (or rainy) afternoon.
Text Explosion begins when you as group leader ask students to read through an entire poem or prose piece. Then ask students to notice interesting phrases or words in the poem and underline them while you read it aloud. Pause here to have students choose one of the phrases they underlined in the piece. Now ask them to do a FFW on that phrase. These can go for five minutes or more. The idea is to generate a rich array of responses to words and phrases. Sometimes, when listening to one another's responses, students note additional words and phrases that strike them anew thus opening up the text’s meaning. Text explosion can be used to illustrate the fact that we all read a text in relationship to our own experience and language interests. The exercise can be a device for opening up a collaborative interpretation. It can demonstrate how reading functions in the space between the reader's response and the writer's text.A more tightly coordinated text explosion can be considered a kind of group FFW coordinated by the leader, who functions like an orchestra conductor. Limit student written responses to two or three sentences. When all have finished, explain the method of group sharing of their pieces of writing. It is as follows: you (as leader) read through the poem accompanied by all student voices read in turn. Ask all to read slowly. As you begin again to read the poem aloud, each student should repeat the author’s words to which they have chosen to write a response. Then each should go on to read through their entire FFW on that phrase. Then you as leader continue reading where you left off. The selected passages will be highlighted, because they will be read at least twice. You invite your students to interrupt your reading by inserting their thoughts and musings.
It’s likely that more than one student chooses to write in response to the same phrase. This is fine, and actually it can be quite interesting. Have students sort themselves out, as if at a traffic jam, and yield the right of way to each other nonverbally. Be sure that each student repeats the phrase that elicited his/her FFW. In the case of such a traffic-jam, the popular phrase will be spoken three times: once by you as “conductor,” and once by each of the two respondents.
The delight of this activity is that it requires group attentiveness and coordination that can produces a high level of student engagement and curiosity. Moreover, in the process students take a piece of writing which is flat (because it is printed) and infuse it with personal meaning by using their own ideas and associations. The ebb and flow of student interaction with a text often makes for an extraordinary oral performance in which all students participate, a structure in which both the whole and the individual variations are honored.
Text explosion might well be a kind of Poetry Play. However, it works well to bring to life other genres of writing, not only works that are highly imagistic but also those that are dense and seem to be impenetrable.
Rendering is a theatrical enactment of a piece of writing. A text is “rendered” or interpreted using sound, rhythm, movement, and the classroom space utilized three dimensionally. After it is modeled once in the large group, small groups prepare to render a text. If you as workshop leader assign an element to individuals within the group (“Joe will provide sound effects; Mary will add percussion; Jeff and Julie will move during the recitation of stanzas two and three; Cecile will narrate— but starting from the end and proceeding to the beginning!), then leave students to work out their own assignments within the group. They practice a few times as an ensemble and then return to the classroom to “perform” to the larger group. Some texts from the Reader that have been very successfully adapted are Margaret Atwood’s “Against Still Life,” Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Green Chile,” Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” Langston Hughes’s “Theme for English B,” and John Hollander’s “Adam’s Task.” Feel free to seek out your own choice of text to be rendered. At the end of the exercise ask students to Process what they discovered about the text as they planned and executed the Rendering.
Rendering lightens the mood of the day, gets students to consider bodily interpretation, gives them experience with self-managing -- and is great fun. The Process allows them to link the exercise to the analytical goals of workshop. The rendering is time-consuming, so consider limiting your use of it to just once during workshop week.
The Silent Walk is used as an antidote to highly social, indoor and cerebral work, the walk is done in a group -- but silently. Students are asked to note the sounds, smells, and sights of the walk and write about those impressions when they arrive at the terminus. Some locations to walk to include the community garden directly behind our building, the PS1 art museum, or others of your choosing. A second prompt, after sharing the FFW on students’ impressions during the silent walk, might be to have a conversation with an imaginary creator of this space. Share these at the site.
Writing in response to music. In this exercise a piece of music is played and students write in response to it and share. The activity may be that unstructured. Alternatively, you may play a cut and ask students to draw an association between their language and the music they hear. Or ask students to describe a visual scene that the music suggests.
Instrumental music seems to work better than music with lyrics. Consider using the pieces on the Student Life page of our web site which were composed by the BHESEC students enrolled in Stephan Weisman’s music composition course. Experiment with having students write during the listening and having them write after the piece is finished. You may want to have students who volunteer bring in a portable stereo and CDs, and have them choose the cuts. (Return materials immediately to the lending student. Do not leave materials unattended in the classroom for any length of time.)
Invariably one of the most popular exercises in workshop, writing to music may be one of the simplest activities for workshop leaders to do, but it can also be one of the most conceptually complex kinds of intellectual activity for students to undertake. In evaluations at the end of workshop, students often cite writing to music as one of the most enjoyable writing activities of the week. If this is the case with your section, feel free to repeat this activity a second time or even third time using different music.
Writing in response to visual art. There is art work in various locations throughout the school. There is some in faculty offices, some on the walls outside the library, there is a composite cityscape made by our students in the principal’s office (with a picture of the artist next to it) as well as a “Children at puppet theatre” by Eisenstadt which you are welcome to visit. You could also choose art on line; there are some interesting pieces by the controversial Banksy Graffiti artist that might strike an interesting cord (the Wikipedia Banksy lists many short articles or one piece reflections that may be interesting to use in conjunction with the pieces). You could ask students to choose one art object and write in response to one or two prompts. Some suggestions: “Write a poem which captures the mood of this scene. Share.” An alternative: “Describe this painting in detail, noting the use of light, color, composition [define], use of space. Share.” Or “Team up with another student. Write a FFW in response to this scene. Trade your writing with your partner’s and read silently through his/her writing. Respond to your partner’s response.”
Writing in response to film. This exercise exposes students to an avant-garde film and asks that they use writing while some fundamentals of film analysis are presented. At Simon’s Rock students watch the film Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon, which is about 18 minutes long at least three times with prompts from the discussion leaders in between.. Pat Sharpe has borrowed a copy from the Simon’s Rock Library for our workshop week. Multiple viewings allow students to witness the development of a narrative structure and motifs. This activity is exciting, as a seemingly odd film gradually becomes less odd, and so students gain confidence in their inquiry into meaning. We have the ability to hold the sessions in the 8th floor auditorium with three or four sections of W&T workshop at a time, it offers a change of pace from the ordinary classroom dynamic with a small group of other classmates. The larger group alters the class dynamic. Students are usually extremely enthusiastic about this activity.
Here are some suggestions for writing prompts and exercises. Have each section leader take turns in issuing the prompts.
-- Once everyone is comfortably seated, announce the director’s name, title of film and year.. Make minimal comments so as to get genuine responses to the first writing prompt.
-- Screen the film for the first time.
-- LOOP #1: Have students record their FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
-- Share some of these.
-- Ask students to help you LIST important objects they saw in the film on the chalkboard.
--Have students SELECT one or two objects from the list (or objects not yet listed), and while watching it the second time, have them make notes as to when or in what settings the object appears.
--Screen the film for the second time. (Students jot down notes here.)
--LOOP #2: Based on their notes and observations, ask students to devise POSSIBLE MEANINGS for the object(s) they selected.
--Share responses in a full-group discussion.
--Prepare students for the third viewing by asking them to CHOOSE one of the following prompts and think about it on paper:
-- LOOP #3: What does the film say? What is the point of the film?
-- Screen the film for the third and final time.
-- Share a few responses to each question as time and interest allow.
-- Here you might open up the class to a general discussion, asking follow-up questions to student observations. Other questions to integrate into writing prompts or simply to talk about: Describe and then analyze the music and its effect on you. What does it suggest to you that the director uses her own body and face as the object of the camera’s eye? Isolate a particular scene and consider the effects of the director’s choice of mise-en-scene (arrangement of objects on a visual field: space’s organization and perception; composition of figures and background; use of lighting, black and white contrast, and motion).
-- PROCESS – You might decide to dismiss students to their home classrooms at 15 minutes before the session ends, so they might Process the film viewing and discussion in their RJs before leaving workshop for the day.
**Be sure to sign up in advance with David Iglesias (for technical support) and Valerie Kaplan (for reserving the room).
The “letter” to the workshop leader. This is another means of making contact with students. Have students email this to you; if they need assistance setting up an email address, have them contact Adam Rhodes. As part of their letter-writing assignment you may choose to ask very specific question(s) of students (eg. What are some goals you hope to accomplish this year? or What is a “small victory” accomplished at Bard thus far? or Go online and look at the biographies of some of the faculty, from the background alone, who would you be interested in taking a class from and why?) or you may leave the assignment less structured. .) On the one hand, sometimes students will offer very different kinds of information about themselves and how they are doing in this letter. On the other hand, students will sometimes write that they have nothing new to say, since you just met and discussed the high points of their impressions at BHSEC thus far. To avoid this latter situation, ask them to find something new to communicate. They don’t necessarily have to reveal highly personal problems; encourage them to share a “small victory” from the summer. Self-congratulation is a useful academic skill that teachers do well to encourage.
Please write a very brief response acknowledging the student’s message as an overture toward communication. Email is perfect, of course, for responding instantaneously.
The Academic, Social or Guidance Support Tour offers students an opportunity to meet the members of our support teams: Learning Commons, Library, Guidance, and Student Activities. In addition students will be introduced to individuals to contact about difficulty with English as a Second Language or other stresses. Each workshop will be visited by members on these teams at some point during the week; sign-up sheets will be available during the faculty training sessions
The Polished Piece of Prose with Process Notes (PPP/PN)
The Polished Piece of Prose (PPP) is the formal 3-page paper students produce in stages over the week, read aloud at the Celebratory Reading, and hand in (with their process notes) to their workshop leader, who in turn can pass it along to their English or Seminar professor in the first week of the fall term. Students should read aloud something they have written and revised during workshop rather than a favorite piece brought into it.
The PPP might reference a reading or two from the Reader, whether directly or indirectly. The PPP may well have had its origins as a variation on loop writing. The PPP ought to be (quoting Jamie Hutchinson here) “exploratory.”
Take some class time to consider the process of titling the PPP. Encourage students to try out titles that are both informative about the piece to follow and eye-catching to pique listener curiosity.
It’s required that students also produce some Process Notes (PN) – perhaps several shorter entries – to accompany the PPP. Some suggested prompts include: “Tell the story of writing this piece.” OR “What were the easiest and hardest aspects of pulling it together?” OR “Describe the conception, gestation and birth of this piece of writing.” Many students find it easier to collect shorter process loops and assemble them, list-style. You, as section leader, might ask them at five crucial moments scattered throughout the week to write a short process on their PPP and its progress: how they came upon their topics, what sparked them; how the small-group critique of the paper pointed them in concrete directions for revision; what happened when they went to revise the paper; what were their thoughts as they typed the final draft.
Celebratory Reading. Workshop culminates with the Celebratory Reading. There each student reads aloud to the group the Polished Piece of Prose (but not their Process Notes). The event is festive and congratulatory. Usually two sections are combined; chairs may be combined to form a large circle, and there is a gigantic read-around. Consider encouraging them to stand when they read. Workshop leaders, too, are expected to share something they have produced in workshop when it is their turn to read.
If students in your section are jittery about reading aloud, take workshop time to practice. Perhaps you could begin by asking them to write a FFW on successful experiences they’ve had and a tip they might offer about speaking effectively in public. Share and discuss these FFWs.
The Celebratory Reading is intended to be celebratory for both students and their workshop leaders, as attested by this faculty member’s experience:
“I would like to share with new faculty my experience of feeling—on the last two days of the program—that my students were not really taking the work seriously. However, at the formal (celebratory) presentation, I could not believe how much they all (or almost all!) had worked on their pieces, and really perfected them. I really was a proud workshop leader. I guess I share that because it was, definitely, a moment of felt-success for me. But also, it reminded me to keep in mind that it may all be going better than you think it is” (Anne O’Dwyer, 31 August 1998).
Introductions at the Celebratory Reading. Students are encouraged to pair up to introduce each other to the larger group. Workshop leaders may introduce themselves or the other workshop leader with whom they are paired for the evening. Give your class a few minutes earlier in the day or the day before the Celebratory Reading to pair up and exchange some basic information about each other. Your prompt can be as original and intriguing as you like, but the introducer should provide at a minimum the speaker’s name and title of his/her piece. One prompt to prepare students for the role of introducing each other is to ask: “What would you like your co-students at BHSEC Queens to know about you?” The introductions can also occur across the sections, though this would take some more advanced planning. Alternatively, you might ask the pair who interviewed each other for the New York Times interviews on Day One of workshop to reconnect and prepare a short introduction using information they already have gathered. (To acknowledge the growth of ties within the group, you might issue a prompt for students to write a FFW on how their understanding of their partner in the first meeting has altered by the last day of workshop.)
When you have convened with the other section for the Celebratory Reading, welcome the sections and briefly describe the format. Ask students to hold all applause until the end (to maximize time efficiency), though the student to the right of the reader may speak for the group and simply thank him/her. At the end of the reading leaders close the session, collect their copy of their students’ writing (to be reviewed and then passed along to either the English or Seminar professor), congratulate the participants for completing the one of the four workshop requirements toward the AA degree at BHSEC Queens.
Planning the Week
Early in the Week:
GOALS: To make students feel comfortable and welcome; to establish individual and group identities; to set the tone for a productive and comfortable classroom; to encourage student writing; to introduce the Small Group Critique process
ACTIVITIES: Begin with the basics: names, hometowns, and families; have students write about an experience or event of the past summer, using several loop prompts. Begin holding individual meetings with students by Sunday afternoon, if possible.
The first meeting: Select one of several name games for FFW; use another on the second day. (Invite students to call you by your first name.) Try ice-breaker writing prompts such as “I have recently become interested in…” or “You may find it interesting to know that I…” Then break into pairs and have students share these with their partner as an entrée to collecting material for a “NY Times interview,” which they write up and then share in order to introduce their partner to the group.
Mid-Week (really by the end of the second day):
GOALS: To give students practice with the Small Group Critique process; to strengthen group trust; to encourage students to go more deeply into their responses to texts; to generate germs of several ideas, material from which they can make selections of pieces to develop and revise in preparing for the Celebratory Reading. Note any red flags being issued by students in crisis.
ACTIVITIES: Generate loops and then choose one and allow class time to develop it. Then break into Small Groups at least twice, perhaps three times. Assign revision of one’s piece as homework at least twice, in addition to other reading and responding. Integrate “lighter” activities. Hold the greatest part of individual meetings with students.
End of the Week
GOALS: To prepare students more intensively for the Celebratory Reading; to ease student concerns about the transition into regular classes; to lighten the mood of workshop to its most playful level; to wrap-up workshop and say good-bye.
ACTIVITIES: Hold a 20-minute “gab session” of questions and answers about life at BHSEC Queens. In the last 20 minutes of the last class, have every student thank the person on their right for something they gave to the workshop. Or make a list of five things they have not yet written about in workshop. Choose one and write a FFW on it.
Planning a day. Begin every day with a FW. Also give students some time in workshop every day to write and develop loops. Indeed, this quiet activity of writing and then sharing them with the group is at the heart of the workshop’s design. This is appropriate, since writing and other kinds of idea-generation in both an individual and a group setting will lie, hopefully, at the heart of their BHSEC Queens academic experience. Developing their confidence with this activity now will serve them well in their two or four years at BHSEC Queens.
In planning for workshop, think of each day as constituting three units: The 10th grade and YR2 have two units in the morning (9:00 to 10:30 and 10:45 to 12:15), and one unit in the afternoon (1:15 to 3 :). The 9th grade and the YR1 have one in the morning (9:00-10:45) and two in the afternoon (11:45-1:15 and 1:30-3:00). Jamie Hutchinson offers a comment on utilizing these units in planning the day: “I've always found it useful in planning each day to think of the schedule breaking down into three parts (without being dogmatic and without thinking of the three emphases as watertight compartments): a workshop that focuses on a text or two; a workshop that utilizes small groups in some way -- writing groups, rendering groups, inquiry/collaboration groups; a workshop that focuses on focused freewriting (FFW) activities. Having this sort of template in mind really helps me not panic when I'm trying to map out what to do on a given day. Usually, I've assigned a text for homework, for example, so I know that I'll be working with it the next day in some way.”
Writing & Thinking, Eating & Resting; breaks. Writing and thinking must be accompanied by eating and resting! The hours of workshop are 9 am to 3:00 pm with a 55-minute lunch. Students are given a 15-minute break between the two back-to-back workshops. Note that only half of the workshops are on break at any given time. This is a good opportunity to help develop a culture of respect for the building and its primary purpose: A Place to Think. One possibility for a free write prior to the first break is: “Bard has as its moto ‘Bard: A place To Think,’ connect this moto to your thoughts about why you chose to come to BHSEC Queens. (2 min.) How can students and faculty members contribute to this environment, (2 min)? Listen to some. Then, if it hasn’t already been noted in the conversation talk about the need for the hallways to be quiet during breaks as you start the break connecting it to some of the comments mentioned. Please limit the break to 15 minutes. Please do not dismiss before 3:00 pm. Always ask students to return to the classroom after small-group work out of the room or after participating in an activity held in another locale. Process the activity (or the day) and dismiss your students from there. Please only allow eating in the cafeteria. No food garbage in the classrooms.
Punctuality and Attendance. Please begin each day promptly at 9 am sharp. Tell students very clearly and from early on that that you expect them to be on time at 9 am, after break, and after lunch. Impress upon your students the need for punctuality. Notice out loud if a student is more than five minutes late. If a student is fifteen minutes late, immediately ask him or her to see you after class. Find out why she or he is late. If a student is chronically late or very late and you have spoken with her or him each time, please pass her name to David Allen who will plan to speak with him/her immediately. Please make arrangements for students to get the prompts they need and ask that they submit such work to you.
****ALSO: Please report any student who is late more than 15 minutes to David Allen (x8000) as soon as possible.
Variety In designing each day’s activities, be sure to vary the classroom tenor and activities and get students out of their seats. Variety is especially important if student energy seems to lag. Occasionally, consider a loosely structured class, perhaps one in which your students work collaboratively in the library as a group. Call them back together at the end to Process and Share, and then give the homework assignment and dismiss them.
Variety: Large-group and small-group work. Every day should include some small-group work as a way to offer students an alternative learning environment. Small-group work also builds the cohesion of the large group by strengthening the bonds within it and allowing for the development of new allegiances. Each time you constitute the small groups, alter their membership; place students with others with whom they haven’t yet worked. From the first time you send students off into small groups, ask them to remain close to the classroom, within eye- (and ear-) shot. Ask students to be mindful of the fact that their voices carry, and they should avoid sitting near the windows of another section of workshop.
Variety: Indoors and outdoors. Weather permitting, you can plan walks in the neighborhood, to PS1, to the community garden, or elsewhere. This is a simple yet powerful way to refresh the environment and make it informal and productive. Please try to think about where you may want to go before workshop begins and arrange permission slips during the two days prior to workshop, so at the end of the first day you can hand out a permission slips.
Variety: Seriousness and fun. Though every selection of students will differ, students are generally ready earlier in the day for “serious” work — quieter, more concentrated blocks of writing and idea-generation. As the morning unfolds you may want to move into group discussion and possibly small-group work. If this last activity was not done in the morning, plan it for the afternoon, the time for more playful and outdoor activities.
Homework. It is expected that students be assigned homework each night for several reasons. Of course, it reinforces some of the practices of the day and increases their familiarity with the texts with which they will work the following day in workshop. It also prepares them to meet the expectation, crucial to their success at BHSEC Queens, that they make peace with a routine of nightly schoolwork. Successful students will quickly learn that socializing and the demands outside of school must be balanced with an academic focus
A basic homework assignment might be this: Ask students to read the excerpts with which you plan to work the next day. For each reading, have students pull out three to five direct quotations and enter them into their RJs (providing page numbers) followed by their comment on that direct quotation. (See two and three-column RJ format discussed elsewhere.) It is important to validate student homework efforts especially in the first two or three days of workshop. This can be done by Sharing and/or by using student familiarity with a text toward a group activity.
The amount of homework should be fairly consistent from one section of workshop to the next, Workshop leaders should aim for about one to two hours of homework each night. Please do not assign a long research paper as a requirement for this workshop.
Please do not expect students to put in more than two hours per night. You might want to monitor this by asking each morning how long it took your students to complete the homework the night before. After the FW of the morning you could ask students to write a Process on how the HW went the night before and then Share all or some of the responses. In keeping with the positive tenor of workshop, you might ask students who aren’t as stressed over this how they were able to find time to do homework and have them share their successful study habits with the rest of the class.
Flexibility; taking cues from your students; listening carefully; revising as you go along. Though you may well have prepared your lesson the night before with great care, the plan might require some fine-tuning as it unfolds, based on the way students are responding to it and to each other, and where it falls in the day. This is a difficult teaching skill to articulate, as it relies on that mysterious quality called “teacher intuition.” Perhaps you begin a long exercise and find that student energy is low. Can you consider switching your agenda around and substituting a more playful exercise? Start the longer exercise at another point, perhaps first thing the next day—when they are alert and ready to work. In another scenario, you had planned to end a writing exercise at 10 am, but the class is thoroughly energized and has worked itself into a high-level discussion. Unless there is a compelling reason to interrupt the flow, let the discussion take its natural course, and save your plan for another time. Also, by midweek when students have caught on to how workshop works, consider giving them a choice of activities when you can. This is especially encouraged on Thursday, the last day of workshop.
Planning an exercise
Though workshop training and sharing scripts offer many concrete suggestions that you are welcome to borrow and reuse in your own section, you are encouraged to use your own original ideas. Keep note of lesson plans you invented which went well, so that you might share your ideas with other workshop leaders at our faculty meetings. We are always eager to hear successful lessons created by workshop section leaders. This is a good way to become inspired about presenting a text with which you’d especially like to work. Students will sometimes ask that you lead them through the activity they heard about from their co-students assigned to a colleague’s section. Talk to each other, and share ideas.
To keep workshop fresh for experienced faculty and to offer new faculty insight into the rationale for these exercises, workshop leaders are often asked to devise a new lesson plan using one of the texts in the Reader. Many of these are presented in Teacher Training, which precedes workshop.
Here are a few suggestions to consider when devising your own lesson plan:
--TO START: Begin with a text selection (or two) and decide on some objectives (or vice versa).
--CLARITY: Keep your instructions/prompts clear and concise.
--TIMING: Note that it may take students longer to do exercises, so avoid a “pay-off” that occurs only very late in the exercise. Similarly, students may run through an exercise more quickly than anticipated, so have an additional prompt or two as back-up.
--STREAMLINE: Minimize the number of prompts.
--PACE: Consider ways to validate each piece of student writing while moving the exercise or discussion along.
--CONNECTION TO HW: Consider developing your activity as a follow-up to student reading and a RJ assignment from the night before.
--PROCESS: Consider using a Process prompt in your assignment to reinforce the point you are after.
--FUN: Recognize that students really enjoy challenge and the creatively off-beat, especially by the middle of workshop. Give them room to enjoy themselves. And be sure you are enjoying them.
Parting Advice to New Workshop Leaders from Your Colleagues
“As I reflect back on my experience last summer, my advice to ‘first timers’ (or those who haven't taught W&T in many years) is don’t go it alone. Pair up with others even if they, too, are new or not very experienced in teaching W&T. Working out shared plans, congratulating each other when things go well, and supporting each other when things don't work out quite as planned--really helps. Last year, Ba Win, Okey and I often planned and reflected together. We stressed a lot, but we also laughed together a lot. Oh -- and remember that the students are really on your side--they want it to go well, too” (Anne O’Dwyer, 3 August 2006).
“My advice to new workshop leaders is to focus on the serious materials early in the workshop, and to allow a group to be quiet in the early days. I would also strongly suggest being firm about boundaries and expectations. […] I insist on their being punctual after each break and after each exercise; I do not allow students to pass on reading their work more than once a day; I insist that they listen to each other respectfully; I do not allow feet on the table. In short, I try to emphasize that their newly-found freedom can only exist in the context of their discipline and responsibility.” (Colette van Kerckvoorde, 1 September 1998).
“Do I have any advice for new faculty? Perhaps I am too ‘new’ myself (this was my first time in the workshop). […] My main recommendations are: be yourself, relax, stay organized but flexible, and don’t be perturbed when things don’t go as planned. Serendipity is key. Come to class with more exercises planned than you can do that day, and you will never be left wondering what to do next. Be sure that homework assignments are relevant and engaging” (Chris Coggins, 28 August 1998).
Goals for Workshop Leaders
Adapted from Bard College at Simon’s Rock Goals
A main goal of the Writing & Thinking Workshop is to give students the chance to learn by speaking aloud in a small and supportive group. Often a more thoughtful discussion is produced if it is preceded by some writing exercise.
Workshop is a text-based learning experience: students write in response to a wide range of texts in the Anthology in order to practice active, engaged reading. The activities of Workshop aim to develop students’ awareness of some of the many kinds of language and the relation of language to thinking. Workshop conveys the message that writing and critical analysis skills are fundamental to students’ success at BHSECQ.
Workshop introduces new students (and faculty) to some of the values of the early college: textual sensitivity; active learning; group discussion as intellectual and personal discovery; rethinking of the role of faculty as sole authority; and encouraging students to take more responsibility and initiative for their own learning. These may very well differ from the ways that they were taught in middle school about language and thinking.
Workshop leaders’ model Active Listening, by hearing what is said and crediting ideas using students’ names indicating the ideas are valued. Leaders also find ways to build on what has been said and encourage that thinking.
Socially, Workshop provides students with a personalized, extended welcome to the campus. It allows them the opportunity to forge friendships with other students, staff and faculty. It provides peer-group support, which encourages the expression of ideas in spoken and written form. Workshop gives students practice in balancing the demands of a social life with academic requirements before the semester actually begins.
Workshop serves as an introduction to the rhythm of the school year by providing a structure of required attendance in class and homework in the evenings. The Workshop marks an important foundation in the structuring of “a Bard experience.” In producing a revised piece of prose, accompanied by process notes, students can link the Workshop experience to their work in English classes, particularly those enrolled in Seminar.
Though its goals are serious ones, the tenor of the Workshop is often playful and exciting. Students frequently produce some good, creative work.
The faculty’s job is to sometimes be a participant and to sometimes be the authority, keeping the group focused on productive activities and dialogue, and encouraging them to think more deeply.
The Workshop encourages students to learn as a community. At the same time, we want to encourage them to become comfortable working and thinking alone. Both modes of learning are encouraged.
Fundamentally, the Workshop promotes the practice of writing as a tool for learning.
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