Comfort in Discomfort: Experimenting with Writing Workshop in Third Grade

We were excited and a little nervous. If we tried writing workshop, would we be comfortable with a “hum of noise”? Would the children learn everything they needed to know to excel on the state writing test? Most important, would writing workshop help us find ways for our children to fall in love with writing, or would we still hear the groans that typically accompanied our announcement, “It’s writing time. Everybody get out your journals.”