In Class: Writing Workshops

Writing workshops are something that I have found both very beneficial and quite pointless depending on the circumstances and classes they occur in. The most beneficial workshops that I have been involved in happened mostly during my junior and senior year of high school in my AP English classes. In these classes, many of the students were on similar levels of thinking and writing ability that I was at, which made for a nice atmosphere to participate in group workshops. This was helpful as I received relevant feedback, interesting insight, as well as good advice for proper revision for various essays throughout the year (my senior AP Lit class was heavy in volume of writing so there were usually workshops weekly or bi-weekly). In other classes in high school, namely non-AP classes, I found that writing workshops were absolutely pointless. Most of the kids who would "revise" my paper either had nothing to say about it at all, or they would give me comments that had nothing to do with my paper and were absolutely irrelevant. In general, I would prefer to revise my own paper and then have my peers who I trust to revise my paper, but I am not totally opposed to group writing workshops. On the whole, this class seems pretty diligent and smart, so I trust that the advice that I receive from my peers would be both relevant and helpful in the long run. +