THE ROUTE FROM PLANNING TO PUBLICATION
Publishing, in educational parlance, is simply sharing writing with an audience. Not every piece merits publication, and the ones that do get special attention to make them as interesting, clear and error-free as possible, as a courtesy
to our readers.
DRAFT 3, PUBLISH 1: We encourage students to publish one out of every three pieces they write. When they have three completed drafts in the last pocket of their writing folders, they should choose the best one to revise and edit for publication. Keeping three drafts in the writing folder at all times ensures that students will have something to work with when practising strategies that have been taught in the workshop.
STOPS ON THE PUBLICATION JOURNEY
1. REVISION (TAG) CONFERENCE: The first stop on the Publication Journey is a conference with the teacher (and perhaps a peer as well). This is a time to offer specific feedback on the content and craft (not conventions) of the piece. Is there anything unclear or incomplete? Is there a more effective way to organize some details or to word them more expressively? This .one-on-one conference is the heart of the writing workshop
2. MAKING REVISIONS: Following the conference, the student goes back into the piece to complete the agreed-upon revision(s).
3. STUDENT SELF-EDITING: Before meeting with the teacher a final time, the student conducts a self-edit of conventions – spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization.
4. EDITING CONFERENCE: The last thing we do before sharing with an audience is polish up the conventions. The teacher will need to make a call on what errors to fix (and whether it’s appropriate for students to publish work with errors).
5. PUBLISHING: In most classes, writing is word-processed for publication, but a polished copy may be handwritten as well.
Return to WRITING WORKSHOP ROUTINES
Return to WRITING INSTRUCTION