Easels are grouped around an undraped figure in a chair, some closer, some further away. They jut like small, spiky Eiffels above the paint-bespattered hardwood floor. Crouching, dancing, or coldly erect painters face these easels and look and paint and look again, building an image, recording a form, bending a color. The lesson is in oils. A blonde on the left's treatment is muted, Impressionist, striving to be watercolor. A brunette begins shading a large purple triangle. A redhead touches up the hairline on a photoreal treatment. The teacher strolls by with comments. The painters glance at one another's canvases. They are not much bothered about the finished work, if they ever finish it. They want to find out how oils work, sense the way they mix, their range of consistency, their play against the texture of taut canvas, the way they slide on a knife.

Much as the art student practices doing art in a studio, the writing student practices doing writing in a studio. The teacher does not lecture to students who sit passively taking notes. And while writing students do not have easels and paints and brushes, they too have tools--pens, paper, perhaps a computer, and plenty of peer power. The teacher preparing for a writing studio must believe that the writing process--the various forms of prewriting and the actual physical activity of writing--and the written product are equally important. Informal and formal writing are used extensively (see next selection), enabling students to see that through writing they can learn and communicate. They find out that writing to learn is a way of exploring ideas and may not always lead to a fixed product. Small peer groups meet to discuss their writing, individual conferencing occurs, the large group debates a reading or a piece of writing, and writing itself takes place regularly. The students and the teacher are engaged in an active writing community, nurturing and sharing writing at all stages. This is the atmosphere sought in any studio, whatever the level and whatever the design. Students discover that writing is much more than a 500-word theme due over the weekend; it's a way to explore and explain what we know, what we don't know, and what we want to know.