Change is a Good Thing

Lately I've been pondering changes to my junior-level English methods class, which focuses on teaching writing. This has begun with completely abandoning the textbooks for the class and adopting new ones. I've decided on these:

Teaching Writing: Craft, Art, Genre by Fran Claggett
Grammar Alive! A Guide for Teachers by Brock Haussamen
Risking Intensity: Reading and Writing Poetry with High School Students by Judith Rowe Michaels

I'll also need to have students read some chapters on the writing process, on conferencing with students, on setting up a writing workshop -- I've got most of those in hand.

I'm thinking of setting it up in a similar fashion to last year, with Tuesdays being regular class days and Thursdays being workshop days. As to the workshop, we will be spending time developing our own portfolio of writing, including at least one narrative piece and some poetry.

Other assignments I'm thinking about include using Hillocks' ideas about structuring writing and a sense of writing workshop format to have students -- individually -- create a plan for teaching a particular type of writing. This will include a "gateway activity" and then a series of structured lessons, in workshop format, to assist students with writing that particular genre.

That's about as far as I've gotten so far, although I have other ideas milling about in my brain.