Yet it can be one of the most useful tools you have for instructing students in writing. The following suggestions are designed to help you with this process in your WI courses. Once you have given your class a writing assignment, you can use writing workshops to help students many times throughout the days and weeks before the assignment is finally due. Some of the workshops may only need to last ten minutes while others may take an entire class period.
Group work can be useful at any stage of the writing process.
For example, you might have them brainstorm ten possible topics, then compare their ideas with one or more people. Or if you've assigned a topic, have them brainstorm several possible approaches and compare them with other students. You may have students take home the drafts of group members, read, and write up comments on them, and then come prepared to discuss in groups during the next class. Or, you can have students read one another's papers without preparation. Perhaps the writer or another group member can read the paper aloud and then take time for the group members to respond to what they have heard.