This month’s Writing Clinic focused on exemplars. Exemplars are models of student work that guide students’ performance. Providing an exemplar of the final product benefits students *and* teachers because it eliminates any doubt about what the work of the unit should look like.

During the workshop, I ran through WHY we should use exemplars, WHAT we can use for exemplars, and HOW we can use exemplars to support students.

Agenda

Finished look of the minilesson’s anchor charts

Teachers spent their tinker time of the workshop making tools to use with exemplars. Most decided to make their grade level’s version of this huge display I saw in a post on the Facebook group for the Units of Study for Writing:

A teacher generously shared her display in this post on the Facebook group
for the Units of Study for Writing

The language for each section comes from the writing checklists available in TCRWP’s Writing Pathways or in the online resources. After printing out their chosen genre’s checklist, teachers started making their tools.

Other teams made small, toolkit-size versions of the same tool.

I’ve really loved every Writing Clinic I’ve hosted so far, but this one might’ve been my favorite. Digging into the topic with teachers, especially during their tinker time, is such valuable PD for everyone. They often ask questions I hadn’t considered, and I love thinking through trouble-shooting options with them: What might that look like? What else could work? What are the possible effects of that? The best part of these Writing Clinics, though, comes in the days afterwards when I see the work being used in classrooms with students. These teachers waste now time testing out new ideas. I’m such a proud coach. ❤

The next Writing Clinic will be focus on Revising Toolkits on January 27th. Hope to see you there!