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In the final section of Craft Lessons, the authors provide an informative question and answer section. The authors address issues like the time it takes for students to adjust to this type of program. They also touch on the absence mini-lessons about  run-on sentences and fragments, ect. They give suggestions on how to encourage the students to apply the elements of good writing to their own compositions. The book ends with the authors providing several student-generated models to give teachers an idea of what to expect. This book had some very good suggestions to incorporate into the teaching of writing.

In the second section of Craft Lessons, the authors provide a large quantity of mini lessons to help students become better writers. The main focus of these mini lessons is incorporating literary elements into the student's own personal writing. These lessons help the student see the importance of finding his/her own voice, understanding setting, and utilizing sensory details. They also stress the importance of a student's work having a clear beginning, middle, and ending. The parts of speech are just a list of memorized terms until the student actually begins to make connections with his/her own writing. Grammar becomes a tool to make writing better when children examine its elements in their compositions. This book is very helpful because the ideas for the minilessons are right here in this section of the book.

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In the first portion of Craft Lessons, the authors stress the importance of teaching students to revise and reread what they have written. These ideas are not based on any type of formula or pattern. Many students find revision difficult because it requires them to utilize so many skills like sequencing, organizing, ect. The classroom environment needs to support young writers who are attempting to develop and polish these skills. Teachers need to devote time to write by making writing a planned time each day. The one-on-one conference provides a great time to offer advice while concentrating on one or two aspects of the child's writing. Young writers need to reread texts and learn to read like a writer by examining the setting, voice, details, ect.

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The final section of Revisiting the Reading Workshop, the authors continue to explain the structure of the workshop. The book stresses that the teacher share his/her own love for reading by talking about  personal readings done at home. The periods of independent reading must be quiet and structured so that most of the time is spent on task. In addition, the authors explain that reading is a social activity where communication between students should be encouraged. The section that deals with partner reading is especially useful. Partner reading should be modeled in detail for the students so that they know what is expected of them when they read in pairs. The authors also explain using story chats to help with comprehension. For ESOL students, the section on "things I was confused about" would be especially helpful. Stories are often filled with idioms and words that students learning another language might not understand.

One of the most important aspects of the reading workshop is the student/teacher conference. The book is very specific in explaining the teacher's role and the student's role when discussing their book. It is also very important for the students to write about what they have read. The traditional reader response journal works especially well. I thought the use of sticky notes was a really neat idea to try. The students use the notes to mark places that they would like to share or passages that were confusing for them. The authors end the book by providing rubrics for assessing the progress of individual students.

In the second part of Revisiting the Reading Workshop, the authors describe mini-lessons that teach the procedures of the reading workshop. The book suggests twenty days of mini-lessons to familiarize the children with the workshop environment. These twenty days determine the success of the workshop model. The book continues to give excellent ideas on strategic mini-lesson topics. We work on many of these in ESOL. For example, self-monitoring comprehension, pausing to recall details, and visualizing the text are all skills that an English student must master in order to be successful in understanding what they read in a second language. I would like to incorporate more of the "making connections" mini-lessons involving text to self, text to text, and text to world connections. Not only does this increase a student's understanding of the text he/she has read, it gives the student an opportunity to explore the text from his/her own unique world view.

In Revisiting the Reader's Workshop , the authors Orehovec and Alley describe the elements of a successful reading workshop. A reading workshop begins with a mini-lesson that may be taught in conjunction with a read aloud. The book stresses the importance of reading aloud to children. In a chart comparing the traditional way reading is taught to the reading workshop method, the authors show that the reading workshop offers a more student-centered approach to reading along with offering more time to actually read. The beginning of the book also outlined some good management techniques for maintaining the reading workshop. In addition, the authors give instructions on how to set up an effective mini-lesson.

This book reminds me of the many advantages students have in the reading workshop. When I began my career as a language arts teacher, our school used the reading and writing workshop methods outlined in Nancy Atwell's book entitled In the Middle . I really enjoyed letting the students choose what they wanted to read. With the right structure and classroom management, the reading workshop can be a wonderful way to teach reading. As an ESOL teacher, I am encouraged by the claim that reading aloud to children is great for acquiring language and comprehension. ESOL teachers do a tremendous amount of reading aloud to our students, as well as having choral and echo readings with the students. Our ESOL text refers to mini-lessons as "focus skills." These are very helpful for the students. I would like to incorporate more mini-lessons, like the ones in this book, into the the stories we read and give my students more freedom to choose their own stories.

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