Writers make choices, make changes, and make meaning. Writing is thinking written down (Zinsser, 1988). Writing, in fact, is the most disciplined form of thinking (Murray, 1984). Today, writing is multimodal, involving images, music, animation, and video. The practice of remixing is a convergence of the fine arts and the core content areas (Alvermann & Phelps, 2013). Writing is so much more than grammar and punctuation. Writing is a powerful tool to help students learn how artists, mathematicians, musicians, scientists, and historians think.
Research suggests an especially beneficial effect to combining writing with reading activities (Graham & Perin, 2007). Literacy coaches and staff developers can work with teachers in small groups (perhaps disciplinary areas) to locate the number of times writing is referred to in the PA Core Standards or the goals/objectives written for your curriculum. Together, they can prepare a shortlist of the different ways that writing is a tool for learning in your specific content area and share the information in the whole group.
We cannot overlook the importance of finding new audiences for students’ writing other than the teacher. Here are some possibilities:
- Students in other classes and grades
- Newspapers
- Magazines
- Social Media (YouTube)
- Podcasts
- Book authors
- Local businesses
- Politicians
- Professional Organizations
- Community Agencies
- Senior Communities/senior living
I like to use two different kinds of journals, reaction and process journals, for writing-across-the-content-area work. Both kinds of journals offer students myriad opportunities to do their thinking in writing. Reaction journals can be used to do the following:
- Connections with prior knowledge and/or experiences
- Doodles, words, and pictures that reflect feelings and/or thoughts about a topic.
- Response to higher-order questions posed by the teacher or a group member.
- Free-writing for five to ten minutes about a specific topic or whatever comes into your mind related to the unit of study
- If I were the teacher, what questions would I ask/ Assignments? Projects?
- Explain a theory, concept, vocabulary term to another person.
- Summarize, analyze, synthesize, compare and contrast, evaluate an idea, topic, person, event.
- Reread a log entry from last week. Write a reaction to what was written.
Process journals can be used in the following ways:
- What questions do I have about what we did/read today?
- Notes, jotting, lists relevant to my upcoming assignments.
- My reflections on cooperative/collaborative learning group processes.
- My predictions & expectations about a new topic.
- What was the most difficult part of the homework assignment and why?
- At what point did I get confused?
- What did I like/dislike today?
- What did I understand about the work we did in class today?
- What didn’t I understand? What was confusing to me?
- What problems did I have with group and/or independent work? A class assignment/lab/research project?
- How did I solve a problem with understanding the text, vocabulary, participating in group work, etc.?
Ask yourself, “How can I use writing to support elements of my curriculum and help my students grow as thinkers and decision-makers? Identify thinking processes that need to be developed in the content area and build writing activities that help to create conditions for that kind of thinking. Closely examine elements of the curriculum to see where writing is a natural fit. Teachers often use writing as a way of having students show that they understand concepts. However, they can also use it to help students reflect on what they are learning and actually enhance their learning by using writing-to-learn activities.
I am participating in #SliceofLife20. Thanks to twowritingteachers team for providing this space for writers to share, reflect, and grow.
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