










































Georgia Journal of Literacy 
2023, Vol. 45(2), pp. 57–65 
https://doi.org/10.56887/galiteracy.122 
ISSN: 2833-7611 

Practitioner Article 

 
 

 

CONTACT Dr. Laura Szech, Assistant Professor, Department of Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle, Literacy, and 
Special Education, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, NC; email szechl@uncw.edu.  
 

Culturally Sustaining Writer’s Workshop for 
Beginners 
 
Laura Szech 
University of North Carolina – Wilmington, Wilmington, NC 
 

ABSTRACT 

This article presents the implementation of a writer’s workshop as a culturally 
sustaining practice, allowing students to exercise agency in their learning and 
writing. The workshop follows a structured flow of read-alouds, modeling, an 
invitation to write, and sharing. Teachers choose specific writing skills or crafts to 
teach, incorporating culturally relevant literature that exemplifies those skills. 
Students are encouraged to write in their own languages and explore diverse story 
structures while also learning dominant forms of writing. The article emphasizes the 
importance of linguistic diversity and challenges the notion that only dominant 
English should be taught. Step-by-step guidance is provided to start a writer’s 
workshop, including book selection, modeling, and supporting students’ individual 
stories. The writer’s workshop aims to position students as active subjects in the 
instructional process, allowing them to express themselves while developing 
conventional writing skills. The article encourages teachers to begin with the 
suggested lessons and adapt them to meet the needs of their students to create a 
culturally sustaining classroom. 

KEYWORDS 

writer’s 
workshop; 
culturally 
sustaining 
pedagogy; 
linguistic 
diversity; mentor 
texts; agency in 
learning 

 
n a time of scripted curricula and packaged programs, the writer’s workshop continues to offer 
a space for students to be an agentive part of their classroom. In a writer’s workshop, students 
have choice and autonomy over their own learning and production. I am a university professor 

of language and literacy. I collaborated with two fourth, fifth, and sixth-grade Language Arts 
teachers to begin a culturally sustaining process of discussing, creating, thinking, writing, and 
sharing. This article is designed to share our process with others in hopes that more teachers can 
get started. Getting started was very hard for these two teachers, as reflected by the sixth-grade 
teacher when she stated, “I kind of felt like I was jumping into stuff that I really wasn’t 100% sure 
of what I was doing, but I enjoy the process and value it.”  The teachers were admittedly nervous 
about letting go of control and letting the children lead; however, when they did let go, the students 
and teachers ended up in a learning space they never expected.  

When Paris (2012) set out to expand on the concept of culturally responsive pedagogy 
(Ladson-Billings, 2009) to the idea of being culturally sustaining, he described that teachers must 
“support young people in sustaining the cultural and linguistic competence of their communities 
while simultaneously offering access to dominant cultural competence” (p. 95). A writer’s 
workshop provides the space for students to use, practice, and play with their own stories, 
languages, and literacies while also learning more dominant forms of the written word in order to 
access the competence and power of which Paris speaks. The teacher must model, teach, reinforce, 
and praise diverse cultural and linguistic stories and forms of writing to elevate them. 

I 

https://doi.org/10.56887/galiteracy.122
mailto:szechl@uncw.edu


58 Georgia Journal of Literacy 45(2)  
 

Too often, students are told by their teachers explicitly and implicitly that their stories and home 
languages do not belong in the classroom. The fourth and fifth-grade teacher shared, “I have 
learned so much more about them than in other spaces. For example, one student’s dad is in prison, 
and I knew that. But in his writing, he wrote about him, and he hadn’t talked about him before.” 
Following that conversation, the teacher shared that they have a better relationship because of this 
writing. The text exchange (Figure 1) shows how 
different their relationship is now.  
 This article will share how writing is a 
perfect space to enhance (or even begin) your path 
toward being more culturally sustaining in your 
classroom practices. The following section 
includes three suggested ways to implement a more 
culturally sustaining workshop: through book 
choice, story structure, and linguistic diversity. The 
following section has concrete tips on how to get 
started with your workshop. Being culturally 
sustaining inherently means that you know the 
community in which you teach and that you adapt 
based on your students for the year or even class 
period. This school was in the Southeast United 
States in a majority Black neighborhood. The neighborhood is predominantly low-income; 
however, the school enrolls students from all over the community. The students and families 
mainly speak African American Language, and many have lived in this small neighborhood 
community for decades. All these cultural aspects matter to being culturally sustaining. Readers 
of this article must consider their school’s communities and cultures and adapt accordingly. 
 
Book Choice 
Students must see themselves reflected in the books they read (Bishop, 2012) and by the authors 
they read to identify with them. Choose books with stories your students might have experienced, 
with characters or plots they can relate to, and have ideas that connect to their beliefs (Tables 1 
and 2). 
 
Table 1: Writing from Memories (Based on a Mini-Lesson in Jacobson, 2010) 

Step Time Allotted Details 
1. Set Goal 1 minute “Today, we will learn how to write a story from our own memories.” 

2. Mentor Text 10 minutes Read or have a student read aloud She Come Bringing Me That 
Little Baby Girl (1974) by Eloise Greenfield.  

3. Anchor Chart  (none) 

4. Model 2 minutes (Think aloud) “Now I have to think of my own memory. I don’t have 
a baby sibling, so I can’t relate to that one, but I do remember a 
time when my parents told me that my brother was moving out. I 
think I’ll write that story.” 

5. Invite 15 minutes “Discuss a few memories with your neighbor; which one is a good 
story to tell that others might find interesting? What format do you 
want to tell it in? (Graphic novel, poem, picture book?) Get started 
on that story or finish what you were working on and write a 

Figure 1: Text Message Exchange 

 



Szech 59 
 

memory story later. Add it to your topic list so you don’t forget, 
though!” 

 
Table 2: Choosing Better Words – Adjectives 

Step Time Allotted Details 
1. Set Goal 2 minutes “In your writing, you want to choose words that give your writing 

interest and strength. Today, we are going to talk about adjectives.” 

2. Mentor Text  The Undefeated (2019) by Kwame Alexander (read aloud at another 
time before teaching this lesson) 

3. Anchor Chart 10 minutes Prepare a chart with the word “adjective” and a kid-friendly definition 
(something we add to a noun to describe it better). Define it for the 
students and ask them to listen while you read. After you read The 
Undefeated, ask kids to suggest adjectives they heard. Go through 
pages and discuss how Kwame Alexander leaves off the noun, but 
the adjectives speak loudly. 

4. Model 3 minutes “In my writing today, I am going to circle a few of my nouns and then 
figure out how to describe them better.” Using teacher writing from 
the memory lesson, circle a few nouns and think aloud how to add 
adjectives to them. 

5. Invite 5 minutes of 
writing 

Invite students to find a few nouns in their writing to add adjectives 
and then continue with their stories or start new ones. 

 
Story Structure  
Many examples of culturally sustaining writing practices have been documented. Delpit (2006) 
observed how there is no ending in Arapaho storytelling. Endings represent the end of life, which 
they do not believe in. The teachers in this community did not understand this initially and were 
correcting students who did not wrap up their stories with traditional endings. Eventually, the 
teachers understood this cultural practice and adjusted their teaching. Delpit (2006) also 
documented how many Black students she observed told: “‘episodic’ narratives—stories that 
include shifting scenes and are typically longer” while the white students told “‘topic-centered’ 
narratives- stories that focused on one event” (p. 55). These examples show the importance of 
teaching writing organization in various ways. Students deserve to learn a story’s 
“beginning/middle/end” structure to succeed on a standardized test. However, they must also have 
space to structure their stories in ways that sustain and celebrate the storytelling styles of their 
communities (Tables 3, 4, and 5). 

Ordoñez-Jasis and Flores (2011) showed how the Latinx families they observed often 
engaged in oral storytelling and wordplay. As a result of understanding this cultural norm, teachers 
explicitly worked to change their classrooms by committing “themselves to centralize the songs, 
ghost and love stories, pretend play, and rhyme that families engaged in” (p. 133). 
 
Table 3: Story Structure Lesson 1 – Thematic Organization 

Step Time Allotted Details 
1. Set Goal 2 minutes “Sometimes writing is about a theme or topic instead of a beginning, 

middle, and end that flows from one event to another. We will read 
Love, written by Matt de la Peña, and see if you can identify how he 
used theme to write his book.” 

2. Mentor Text 10 minutes Love (2018) by Matt de la Peña  



60 Georgia Journal of Literacy 45(2)  
 

3. Anchor Chart 10 minutes Put the word “love” in the middle of the chart, then identify all the 
ways that he shows and describes love in the book. Do they need to 
be in one order or another? Not necessarily. 

4. Model 3 minutes “In my writing today, I am going to think of a concept like love and see 
if I can describe it in many different ways. I’m going to write about my 
neighborhood. There’s no organization to the people, events, and 
feelings in my neighborhood; I am just going to describe them.” 

5. Invite 5 minutes of 
writing 

“Today, I invite you to write a thematic story if you aren’t in the middle 
of something else. Map it out, then get started.” 

 
Table 4: Story Structure Lesson 2 – Beginning-Middle-End Organization (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2007) 

Step Time Allotted Details 
1. Set Goal 2 minutes “Today, we are going to try to spread out our story from beginning to 

middle, to end. Let’s revisit the story, Hair Love, to see how the 
author did it.” 

2. Mentor Text  Hair Love (2019) by Matthew Cherry (read aloud at another time 
before teaching this lesson) 

3. Anchor Chart 10 minutes As you revisit the story with students, map out Hair Love’s beginning, 
middle, and end across three pages (sketch pictures, add a few 
words, etc.). Discuss how you want to stretch out the events to make 
a more detailed story. 

4. Model 3 minutes “In my writing today, I am going to tell a story across three pages.” 
Write a simple story about something that happened with a clear 
beginning, middle, and end. 

5. Invite 15 minutes of 
writing 

Pass out three pages labeled “beginning, middle, and end” and invite 
them to sketch and write their own story. 

 
Table 5: Story Structure Lesson 3 – Circular Organization 

Step Time Allotted Details 
1. Set Goal 2 minutes “Sometimes stories are not organized with a beginning, middle, and 

end. You have a choice to organize your story in different ways. One 
way is called the circular organization, where your story returns to the 
beginning at the end. Poetry is often written this way; let’s examine 
this poem.” 

2. Mentor Text  Poem to (F.S.) (1925) by Langston Hughes  
I loved my friend. 
He went away from me. 
There’s nothing more to say. 
The poem ends, 
Soft as it began— 
I loved my friend. 

3. Anchor Chart 10 minutes Write the poem on the chart and ask students to comment on how it 
is “circular” and what makes it work to be circular (not all stories work 
this way). Elicit ideas about topics that do not have to have a 
beginning, middle, or end. Make the distinction between event stories 
and feelings topics to help them. 

4. Model 3 minutes “In my writing today, I will write about my mom. Our relationship does 
not necessarily have a beginning or an end; things just change. I am 
going to write a poem like Hughes.” 



Szech 61 
 

5. Invite 15 minutes of 
writing 

“Today, I encourage you to try this out if it works for your topic or if 
you want to start something new.” 

 
Linguistic Diversity 
Teachers often think they must teach their students dominant English (sometimes called “correct” 
English, subliminally implying other languages are 
incorrect). As Delpit (2006) described, teachers are 
responsible for teaching students dominant forms of 
speaking and writing to access the power structures that 
expect them (job interviews, apartment hunting, etc.). 
However, in a culturally sustaining classroom and our 
broader society, dominant English is just one way to speak 
and write. In a writer’s workshop, students craft their 
stories as their own; thus, all languages and literacies are 
welcome. Teachers might choose to teach a mini-lesson 
on dialogue and instruct students to make their characters 
speak in ways that accurately reflect the person depicted, 
practicing writing in both dominant English as well as 
other languages and dialects (Table 6). 
 
Table 6: Dialogue Mini-Lesson  

Step Time Allotted Details 
1. Set Goal 2 minutes “Today in your writing, I want you to consider how the narrator speaks 

and if it reflects how they might really sound in real life.” 

2. Mentor Text  Chapter 1, The Skin I’m In (1998) by Sharon Flake 

3. Anchor Chart 10 minutes Before the lesson, prepare three columns labeled Teacher Voice, 
Maleeka’s Voice, and John-John’s Voice. As you read chapter one, 
write the dialogue in each column. After reading the entire chapter, in 
a different color marker, add notes about what you learn or can 
picture about the character from the way they talk (Teacher is formal, 
“excuse me,” John-John teases a lot “ba-boom,” and Maleeka is 
casual “that-a-way.”) 

4. Model 3 minutes “In my writing today, I am going to make sure that I include dialogue 
and that it sounds like my brother and me.” Model adding two 
sentences to my memories story. 

5. Invite 15 minutes of 
writing 

“Today, I would like you to think about how your characters would 
talk, what you want us to learn about them from their talking, then 
include a quote or two.” 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tip: An important distinction for 
teachers to recognize is the idea that a 
usage (spelling, convention, phrasing) 
must be shared amongst a group of its 
speakers to be a part of that culture or 
community. For example, spelling the 
word /ask/ as /aks/ is a very common, 
shared usage and, therefore, a correct 
way to spell and say that word in 
African American Language. If a 
student is a Spanish speaker at home 
and chooses to write in Spanish or a 
mixture of Spanish and English, that 
likely represents their community’s real 
usage and is correct. 



62 Georgia Journal of Literacy 45(2)  
 

Steps to Start 
Each writer’s workshop lesson follows the same basic flow as shown in the examples above: read 
aloud, modeling, an invitation to write, writing, and then sharing out (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001; 
Jacobsen, 2010). First, teachers read a story or excerpt and point out 
the skill. Next, they model putting it into their own writing. Last, they 
invite students to try out that skill in their writing sometime soon and 
set them off to write. At the end, everyone comes back together, and 
a few students share and get feedback. 
 First, pick the writing skill or craft you would like to teach. 
These can be big-picture writing concepts like how to choose a topic 
or organize a story all the way down to the nitty-gritty of word choice 

and comma placement. For example, in 
the Book Choice section above, the craft-type lesson is ‘writing from 
memories’ while the skill one is using adjectives. Many teachers 
struggle to understand what to teach in a writer’s workshop because 
writing is sometimes conceptualized only as skills. For example, a 
Common Core fifth grade writing standard states, “link ideas within 
and across categories of information using words, phrases, and 
clauses.” This standard focuses on grammar. Writing is a craft, an art 

form in a writer’s workshop. Writing is taught as a means of expression along with the 
conventional skills that help the writer convey their thoughts to an audience. I highly recommend 
any beginner to writer’s workshop purchase Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K–8 (Fletcher & 
Portalupi, 2007) for an abundance of mini-lessons and the book No More “I’m done”: Fostering 
Independent Writers in the Primary Grades (Jacobson, 2010) for an overview of the workshop 
along with management tips. However, to be culturally sustaining, you must adapt the lessons and 
ideas to have culturally relevant read alouds and to be more centered in your students’ cultural 
literacy practices.  

After you decide on the specific skill you want to teach, you need to find culturally relevant 
literature that clearly models that skill. You do not have to know a lot of books, and this is a time 
to use your local school librarians or media specialists, public libraries, and online sites like 
Diverse Book Finder (diversebookfinder.org). You also do not need to purchase physical books; use 
free resources (e.g., Netflix’s Bookmarks or a plethora of read alouds on YouTube). In the lesson 
plan below (Table 7), I’ve included books that have worked well for me in this community. 
However, you will have to adapt these choices to fit your community’s needs and practices. Once 
you have picked a book, you will read it aloud to your class, explicitly examining the skill the 
author exemplifies. This is a great time to create anchor charts that you will display as reminders 
of each mini-lesson. 

When the book or excerpt is complete, you will then model how 
you think about and apply this skill to your own writing. You will fully 
model this in front of the students. Now, this does not mean you are writing 
a whole story in front of your class. Perhaps you are working on picking a 
better start to your story. You could use a story you have previously written 
in front of them (save all your writing as well as theirs) and model trying 
out new beginnings until you pick the one you like best. 

After modeling, you will invite them to try out this new skill in their writing sometime 
soon. You do not make it mandatory because perhaps that skill does not fit with what they are 

Tip: Even with high 
schoolers, I predominantly 
use picture books and 
poems. When students are 
first starting, they are 
intimidated and modeling a 
skill in a novel subliminally 
sends the message they 
must write a novel. 

Tip: Consider withholding 
paper in the beginning until 
they decide on a topic to 
start. Typically, students 
see the others starting to 
write and eventually want a 
paper to begin their own 
story. 

Tip: When the students 
are finished simply say 
“Great! Start another 
one!” and walk away so 
they realize writing is a 
continuous cycle 
(Jacobson, 2010). 

https://diversebookfinder.org/


Szech 63 
 

working on that day. Suppose you are teaching about dialogue and using quotation marks, but a 
student is in the middle of writing a descriptive poem. In that case, that student will have to file 
away that knowledge for a later story (which you and the anchor charts will help them with when 
it comes to that time). Because students are the producers of the work, workshop teachers do not 
expect students to work on specific timetables or checklists of skills. 

As students write, the teacher is either writing themselves or circulating to help students 
with their work. Teachers are not endlessly hounding students to get started or providing them 

with a litany of ideas to write about. Students must come up with their 
own stories on their own, which sometimes takes a few lessons, but it 
is essential that they find their voice. Do not be surprised or frustrated 
with this process; I have yet to see a student NOT write anything. 

Invite a few students to share their work in the last few minutes 
of every single writing period. When students share their writing, they 
reinforce the writing skill you were teaching by pointing it out or 
discussing it, celebrate their writing, and encourage reluctant writers to 
start because they also want this praise and attention. I recommend 

starting Day 1 with a lesson on genre and format (Table 7). 
 

Table 7: Genre and Format 

Step Time Allotted Details 
1. Set Goal 2 minutes Tell students they are going to study authors and books in order to 

understand how to write better. 

2. Mentor Text (Prepare in 
advance) 

For this lesson, set out a range of potential culturally relevant books 
around their reading levels with different genres and formats along 
the whiteboard ledge. Examples:  

 Black Boy (1945) by Wright (Autobiography, Novel)  
 Hair Love (2019) by Cherry (Personal/Family Narrative, 

Picture Book)  
 Punching the Air (2020) by Zoboi and Salaam (Personal 

Narrative, Novel in Verse) 
 Sulwe (2019) by Nyong’o (Fantasy/Fairytale, Picture Book)  
 The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History (2021) by 

Walker (Historical Non-Fiction and Graphic Novel) 
 Monster (1999) by Myers (Mystery, Play) 

3. Anchor Chart 10 minutes Prepare the chart with the words “genre” and “format.” Define the 
terms in kid-friendly language. Ask the students to suggest genres 
and formats they may know and add them to the anchor chart (i.e., 
add a graphic novel to the format section and historical fiction to the 
genre section). When the students have exhausted their ideas, 
examine each anchor book to add that genre and format to the chart. 

4. Model 3 minutes Briefly make your own genre and format chart of what you would like 
to try in your own writing. 

5. Invite 5 minutes of 
writing 

Invite students to make their own genre and format chart of ideas 
they want to write someday. Save this chart in their writing folders. 

 
Discussion and Conclusion 
Because the students in a writer’s workshop generate their own stories in their own languages, 
they will inherently be of their own practices. The culturally sustaining teacher’s job is to embrace, 
celebrate, and expand on these practices while teaching dominant practices that lead to access to 

Tip: Writer’s workshop 
also includes individual 
conferencing. This is a 
very important piece to 
consider once your 
workshop is flowing. Read 
further into this topic after 
getting started. 



64 Georgia Journal of Literacy 45(2)  
 

power. The fourth and fifth-grade teacher I worked with reflected, “I wanted them to see that they 
are the authors; this is not ‘read this book and tell me what the right answer is.’ In writing, they 
make the decisions.” Her students were gaining agency in the classroom. In 2014, Ladson-Billings 
described the shift towards culturally sustaining pedagogy, explaining how it “layer[s] the multiple 
ways that this notion of pedagogy shifts, changes, adapts, recycles, and recreates instructional 
spaces to ensure that consistently marginalized students are repositioned into a place of 
normativity—that is, that they become subjects in the instructional process, not mere objects” (p. 
76). In a writer’s workshop, your pedagogy shifts and adapts so students have that agency and are 
positioned in the center of instruction.  

I encourage you to start here and then read more to grow your workshop. As the teacher in 
the introduction reflected, starting is one of the hardest parts. I suggest you order a book or two on 
leading a workshop, such as No More I’m Done: Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary 
Grades (Jacobson, 2010), and simply begin with the suggested lessons in this article. Once you 
get started, it will be much easier to understand and adapt to best fit the needs of your students! 
 
References 
Bishop, R.S. (2012). Reflections on the development of African American children’s literature. 

Journal of Children’s Literature, 38(2), 5–13. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ984607 

Delpit, L. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. The New Press. 

Fletcher, R., & Portalupi, J. (2007). Craft lessons: Teaching writing, K–8 (2nd ed). Stenhouse. 

Jacobsen, J. (2010). No more “I’m done”: Fostering independent writers in the primary grades. 
Stenhouse. 

Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children 
(2nd ed). John Wiley & Sons. 

Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. The remix. Harvard 
Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.84.1.p2rj131485484751 

Ordoñez-Jasis, R., & Flores, S.Y. (2011). Descubriendo historias/Uncovering stories: The literacy 
worlds of Latino children and families. In C. Compton-Lilly, & S. Greene (Eds.), Bedtime 
stories and book reports: Connecting parent involvement and family literacy (pp. 124–
137). Teachers College Press. 

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and 
practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X1244
1244 

 
Mentor Texts 
Alexander, K. (2019). The undefeated. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 

Cherry, M. (2019). Hair love. Penguin Random House. 

de la Peña, M. (2018). Love. G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 

Flake, S. (1998). The skin I’m in. Hyperion. 

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ984607%20
https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.84.1.p2rj131485484751
https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244
https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244


Szech 65 
 

Greenfield, E. (1974). She come bringing me that little baby girl. Harper Collins. 

Hughes, L. (1925). “Poem to (F.S.).” The Crisis. 

Myers, W. D. (1999). Monster. HarperCollins. 

Nyong’o, L. (2019). Sulwe. Simon & Schuster. 

Walker, D. (2021). The Black Panther party: A graphic novel history. Ten Speed Press. 

Wright, R. (1945). Black boy. HarperCollins. 

Zoboi, I., & Salaam, Y. (2020). Punching the air. HarperCollins. 
 
 
Received: May 19, 2023 | Accepted: July 7, 2023 | Published: November 13, 2023 


	Book Choice
	Table 1: Writing from Memories (Based on a Mini-Lesson in Jacobson, 2010)
	Table 2: Choosing Better Words – Adjectives

	Figure 1: Text Message Exchange
	Story Structure
	Table 3: Story Structure Lesson 1 – Thematic Organization
	Table 5: Story Structure Lesson 3 – Circular Organization

	Linguistic Diversity
	Table 6: Dialogue Mini-Lesson

	Steps to Start
	Table 7: Genre and Format

	Discussion and Conclusion
	References
	Mentor Texts

