Writing in the content areas

1. Writing in the content areas

2. Product-centered views of writing were replaced with process-centered views of writing. • Process writing • Situated learning • Multicultural urban classrooms

3. The belief that writing promotes learning. • A cultural tool to build and examine knowledge • Writing provides a means to explore and make sense of ideas and experiences • Writing can alter the role of the teacher, the role of the student while changing the value of knowledge in the content areas. • Writing across the disciplines can help students learn about the wide range of genres and formats used in various content areas. • Types of writing • Restricted writing • Summary writing • Analytical writing

4. The understanding that writing furthers constructivism. • Writing is a meaning construction process that activates knowledge held in memory including world knowledge, text structure knowledge, metacognitive knowledge, and knowledge of the mechanics of writing • Writing can also be used to promote constructivism in the form of knowledge-building whereby students use writing to learn through inquiry. (WAC)

5. The development of the National Writing Project. • A format in which teachers using writing in the schools can meet with other teachers to improve student writing. • In 1974 at the University of California, Berkeley the first Summer Institute of the Bay Area Writing Project took place. • The National writing project emerged in the late 1970s.

6. Basic Assumptions of the NWP: • Teachers learn well from other teachers because of their credibility. • Writing is a tool that facilitates learning in science, math, history, and other disciplines as well as in English. • Teachers who teach writing write. • To be effective, professional development programs must be on-going so that teachers come together throughout their careers to exchange ideas about writing. • Teachers must be free to participate voluntarily in NWP programs. • Knowledge about teaching writing comes from both research and classroom practice. • The NWP encourages the critical examination of a variety of approaches to the teaching of writing and promotes no single writing pedagogy. • Working together, teachers and universities can guide and support school reform (National Writing Project, 2001).

7. Categories of Writing: • Writing to assess learning • When composing students have to construct and organize knowledge from what they have learned and stored away. • Writing for evaluative purposes limits the amount of enrichment students can gain from writing. • Formulaic writing curtails students’ analytical thinking and writing skills. • Use of process writing and rubrics and address some of the above concerns

8. Writing to promote learning. • Exploratory writing (“writing that enables us to discover what we want to say”). • Make sense of ideas • Construct new understandings • Make new connections • Generate questions • Monitor understanding

9. Ways to engage students in exploratory writing • Admit and exit slips • Freewrites • Question papers • Skeletons (Pressnall, 1995) • In the 1960’s Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall and others tried to change a few things. They had many goals. They tried many tactics. They met resistance. They met success. • DEAD (drop everything and draft) • SNAP (Stop now and process)

10. RAFTing • Role • Audience • Format • Topic

11. Writing to observe student work • Reveals student thinking and learning visible. • It confirms progress in learning. • It shows breakdowns in thinking and learning. • Allows teachers to plan for instructional decisions through observations of students’ writing.