Experiences with different language arts strategies

Before last class I did not know much about writers workshop--but I do remember having similar methods in school. As a class if there were unclear topics, our teacher would do a mini lesson to review the topic usually followed by a worksheet after. We did have an area in our classroom where we could get supplies such as paper, pencils, stapler etc to use during our writing time. I did like having the mini lessons, I felt like it helped refresh our memories on topics that we had learned before. For example, punctuation, sentence structure etc.

I do not remember having literature circles in school, I remember having the same book as everyone else and we would do "popcorn reading" in class. Where one student would start reading and then after a paragraph the student would call on someone else to read the next paragraph. I did and did not like this method. I thought it made the students pay attention more to what was being read just in case it was there turn to read next. But I also was shy in school therefore I was paying attention, but did not like reading in class in front of everyone.
I also remember having an incentive to read--in school they had "book it" where after you read a certain number of books you recieved a sticker which went on your pin and after a certain amount of stickers you recieved a personal pan pizza for free! I did like to read in school, but this program did encourage me more to read :)