Reclaiming Power in the Writers' Workshop

Abstract

In this article, we examine how young writers and their teachers transformed the language arts curriculum by asserting their power within a familiar framework – the writer's workshop. We present three narratives in which multiple pre-kindergarten agents (students, teachers, and administrators) used their power within the Writer's Workshop to a) ensure writing was a daily practice in pre-kindergarten classrooms, b) to write about stories often censored in early childhood classrooms, and c) claim new writing identities. The two classrooms we describe used similar pedagogical structures to teach writing following the decades-old traditions of Writer's Workshop; however, we found that what happened within those traditions—among children, teachers, and school administrators—transformed contemporary practices of literacy education. All three stories share a common thread; when positioned within the structure of a Writer's Workshop, young authors and their teachers claim power and, ultimately, assert their voices.