Writing Circles

If literature circles work with your readers, Jim Vopat has exciting news: peer-led small groups are just as effective with writers.

Read Writing Circles and find out how they:

• lead students from practice to progress as they write, respond, and lead one another toward better writing
• motivate and engage everyone through choice—including struggling writers and English learners
• develop voice and encourage risk-taking across genres
• rehabilitate the writing wounded and nurture growth through peer response—not critique
• make teaching more efficient by reducing the need for one-on-one conferring.

Vopat helps you get started with circles and shows how they can help you achieve instructional goals. He includes step-by-step guidance for implementation and assessment, activities that make management smooth, and minilessons that scaffold growth in skills, topic selection, and craft.

Writing Circles are a revolution, not an evolution, in writing workshop—the missing link between independent student writing and whole-group instruction. Try them with your students; give kids the space, safety, and support they need; and see why circles are as powerful for writers as they are for readers.