This foundational workshop establishes the writer’s notebook as the curriculum itself. Rather than using a traditional textbook, students fill physical notebooks with daily, low-stakes writing, flash drafts, and craft notes. The goal is to build writing fluency and mental stamina while establishing a "culture of vulnerability and bravery" where students feel safe to explore their own ideas.
Taught early in the year to build community, this workshop uses place-based writing to help students honor their identities and cultural backgrounds. Students study mentor poems to "Notice & Name" authorial craft moves and then create their own counter-stories that challenge regional stereotypes. The workshop culminates in a celebration of the writer’s voice through an Open Mic or Gallery Walk.
This workshop focuses on creative nonfiction, inviting students to story their own physical or metaphorical journeys through specific spaces. By studying counter-narratives in picture books, students learn to disrupt mainstream narratives and center historically marginalized perspectives. Instruction focuses on narrative craft moves such as dialogue, sensory language, and motif.
Students are invited to engage their imaginations to create "what if" scenarios that move toward more just and hopeful futures. The focus is on flash fiction (stories under 1,000 words), which requires writers to practice brevity and trust their readers to infer details. Students engage in world-building by mapping their own internal identities to ensure their fictional worlds are intentional and consistent.
This workshop disrupts the traditional whole-class novel study by focusing on how long-form texts are constructed. Students "read in service of their writing," tracing how authors develop characters, build suspense, and reveal themes over several chapters. The workshop emphasizes collaborative talk through fishbowl discussions and one-on-one reading conferring.
Designed to foster critical consciousness, this workshop teaches students to analyze literature through various theoretical lenses, such as critical literacy, feminist, or queer analysis. Using genocide studies as a thematic anchor, students learn to move beyond simple summary to write comparative analytic essays that interrogate power, privilege, and social systems.
Reimagining argument as a critical conversation rather than a winner-takes-all debate, this workshop focuses on advocacy and social action. Students create multimodal texts, such as TED-style "Youth Talks," that blend linguistic, visual, and gestural modes. Instruction focuses on sophisticated rhetorical moves: illustrating with personal experience, authorizing with expert evidence, and extending the ideas of others.
Jenn Yong Sanders is a professor of literacy education at Oklahoma State University who works with K–12 teachers to enact culturally sustaining and relational writing instruction.
Sarah J. Donovan is an associate professor of secondary English education at Oklahoma State University who leads professional development on workshop routines, genre-based instruction, and ethical assessment.