Writers Workshop Pattern Language Overview

This is an overview of a small pattern language for WritersWorkshops?. You can see a list of the patterns (and start walking through the pattern language) at WritersWorkshopPatterns.

This is a "cheap" pattern language. The patterns not only should be applied in order, but reflect a temporal (rather than structural) progression. There is no single ideal medium to describe what goes on in a writer's workshop. I use patterns here not because they describe structure, but because they provide an ideal form to elaborate the forces that drive these ceremonies.

This collection of patterns is decidedly generative. None of these patterns stand alone; they are gestalten that combine to make a whole larger than the sum of the lot. The patterns interact in intricate ways; I attempt to describe the interactions in the course of the presentation.

This language describes our many writer's workshop experiences at Bell Labs. The rationales and forces recall the initial tutoring that the Hillsiders received from RichardGabriel back in 1993 or 1994, at a retreat near Ben Lomond. That's the closest link we have to the creative literature community, which has a lot more experience with this format than we do in the pattern community. I offer this language as capturing practice that has worked very, very well for us, in hopes that others find it useful.

-- JimCoplien

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See:

• The WritersWorkshop page
• LindaRising's summary at http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/users/patterns/workshop-patterns.html
• DougSchmidt's workshop guidelines for PLoP '96 at http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/writersworkshop.html