Written Reflection: Creating Better Thinkers, Better Writers

Abstract

for the past ten minutes. glance at the clock-ten a time routinely set aside in our writer's workshop minutes left in the hour. Take out your writer's log, direct over the hub-bub of the room. The chatty girls reluctantly return to their own computers and seats. Several students groan. I know, know. 'I don't want to think. Thinking is hard. Thinking is work,' tease in my best whiny teenager voice while students turn to the section of their notebooks labeled Writer's Log. What's been going on in your writing this past week? ask. The quiet in the room is even more overwhelming than the noise of a minute ago. Several students scribble furiously. Obviously they have much to say. One boy sits perplexed. walk toward him and read over his shoulder, and he asks what that thing is called where we checked to see if our topic sentences fit our thesis. Unity and coherence? ask. Yeah, he says and begins to write. Several students finish in minutes and shut their