Writer's Workshop in Language Arts vs. Informational Literacy in Science

            I’ve been telling friends and family recently that going back to graduate school has already made me a better teacher, because it has turned many things I thought to be true, onto its head.  What I mean by this is that I have been encouraged to re-evaluate and improve several of my practices.  For example, I thought I had been doing Writer’s Workshop previously, but it turns out that the elements that I missed from the one-day training, are the ones that make Writer’s Workshop an extraordinarily powerful tool in the classroom.  So when I think about what I want my MA Project to entail, I think about what I am looking forward to improving during the next school year. 

            First, I would like to spend more time, as I have in the last couple of months, re-prioritizing within my language arts curriculum to focus on Writer’s Workshop and see what transformation, if any, students go through.   I think I could make a simple and useful MA project that focuses on implementing Writer’s Workshop into my language arts classroom answering a question such as, “What happens when I implement Writer’s Workshop into the classroom?”  The only problem is, I have already implemented it halfway, and I already think it is the greatest addition to my classroom. 

            Second, more recently, I have become aware that through Common Core, informational literacy should and will become a focus within not only language arts classes, but social studies and science as well.  As a science teacher, I am excited and overwhelmed about re-configuring these classes to promote informational literacy through reading and writing.  I have also been hired by the district to teach a two-day summer institute at the end of the summer, to social studies and science teachers that should help support them through this transition.  Additionally, I am currently pushing to try to begin the year in language arts with informational literacy to see if that will better support students in the content areas.  I think I could create an interesting project where I asked, “What happens when I focus on informational literacy in the science classroom?” and have a newer, fresher cycle of inquiry.  The only problem is, I also want to adjust my science classroom so that it is more inquiry-based and focused on experiential learning for students, and while I don’t know how exactly I want to do this, I don’t want to change too many things within the classroom at once during this research project or I won’t know which change was effective. 

             I will probably make all of these changes in some way next year, the question is: Which one do I want to focus on the most, and therefore make into my project?