Writing+Workshop

Developing the ability to communicate clearly and artfully is our everyday ambition in fifth grade. Each of the pages in this section provide you with tools, mentors, and inspiration to grapple with our challenging (and fun) units of study this year.

Writing Workshop Adapted from Jim W. Miller's poem by Charlotte Geyer

Try to think of your first draft as a creek In flood time, roaring out of banks. There’s been a nightstorm on your mind’s headwaters So the writing comes trash-filled, tumbling Full of chicken coops, barbed wire, Tin shed roofs scraping down over rocks. It’s tearing along through trees on either bank Dropping fertilizer sacks and two-by-fours in branches. It’s swirling and standing out in bottomland.

Now you work with it until it drops Every tin can and bottle and runs clear Again between its banks. Of course, you’ll want To leave a few surprises, so the reader, Out in your writing like a trout fisherman in waders, Rounds a bend and comes upon a piano Lodged high in the forks of a sycamore.