AVID Instructional Strategies: Writing to Learn

AVID Instructional Strategies:Writing to Learn Dr. Judy Romanchuk Magnet Coordinator International Baccalaureate Program Campbell High School judy.romanchuk@cobbk12.org

AVID History Advancement Via Individual Determination • 1980 desegregation court order brought large numbers of inner city students to academically acclaimed California high school • Currently serves approximately 300,000 students in over 3,500 elementary and secondary schools in 45 states plus DC and 15 countries • Boasts a proven track record for bringing out the best in students and closing the achievement gap

AVID Philosophy • Acceleration instead of remediation • Hold students accountable to the highest standards, plus provide academic and social support to enable them to rise to the challenge

AVID Goals • Provide access and increase enrollment in advanced classes (honors, AP, IB) for students in the academic middle • Level playing field for minority, rural, low-income, and other students without a college-bound tradition in their families

Teaching Methodologies - WICR • Writing to learn – emphasis on writing in all subjects with a focus on clarifying and communicating thoughts and understanding material • Inquiry – instead of lecture. Activities, such as Cornell notetaking and tutorial groups, are built on asking questions, which forces students to clarify, analyze, and synthesize material.

WICR • Collaborative – teacher becomes a facilitator and an advocate, with students responsible for their learning. Tutors become discussion leaders, as students learn from one another • Reading (critical reading) – students analyze, question, critique, clarify, and comprehend material in all subject areas

Writing to Learn Different from traditional writing • Different goals (designed to give order, process information) • No polished finished product • Focuses on developing higher order thinking, analyzing, and summarizing rather than communication

Writing, a Unique Mode of Learning • Writing provides the processneeded to relate new knowledge to prior experience. • To learn we must place new knowledge into an existing language and cognitive framework. • Written material is concrete and visible, able to hold ideas for further processing.

National Commission on Writing: “If students are to make knowledge their own, they must: • struggle with the details • wrestle with the facts • re-work raw information and dimly understood concepts into language they can communicate to someone else.”

Writing Often… Writing often, several times a week, provides constant reinforcement of the content.

Writing to Learn Activities • Involve students as activeparticipants (not passive receivers) – a tool of thinking • Provide a risk-free environment to try out new ideas and take creative risks • Provide practice in a specific skill or type of thinking important within a discipline

Writing to Learn Activities • Allow students to have the experience of writing with full attention to their own thoughts, rather than being preoccupied with a concern for correctness • Provide practical information on what students know or don’t yet understand (valuable means of formative assessment)

Research on Writing to Learn • Student achievement on state assessments, exit exams, and other measurements greatly improves. • Students demonstrate growth in core academic learning and concept building. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory

Writing-to-Learn Basics • Writing Breaks • Entry and Exit Slips • Learning Logs • Narratives and Academic Journals • Dialogues • Double Entry Journals

Writing Breaks • At specific points during class, students stop and reflect in writing on the activities or information presented. • The WB may be followed by quick sharing with partners or the whole class (Think/Pair/Share) • Break and topic may be predetermined or spontaneous.

Entry and Exit Slips • Written responses from students to questions the teacher poses either at the beginning (entry) or the end (exit) of class. • Why? Check students’ understanding by having them formulate the concept or main points in their own words.

Entry (Admit) Slips • Students bring a short piece of writing to class the next day—a reflection on the reading assignment or a discussion item from the previous class period (may reflect additional information from homework)

Variation – Start-up Writes • Students write for the first 2-5 minutes in response to a prompt or quote from the previous day or from the homework assignment • Provides an excellent sponge activity that puts students to work immediately

Exit Slips • Save the last one to five minutes of class time and ask students to jot a quick response to some aspect of the day’s lesson on a half sheet of paper or an index card • Read the notes later on and use them to help plan the next class session (formative assessment)

Exit Slip Example • What were the three most important ideas we learned today and why do you think they are important?

Learning Logs • Students respond to a prompt that helps them articulate what they have learned and discover what they don’t understand • Designed to locate gaps in student knowledge – critical as students seek to take responsibility for their own learning by asking questions about—and seeking help for—areas of confusion Detailed instructions in AVID Curriculum Guide for writing (See Resources)

Cornell Notetaking System • An efficient method for mastering information, not just recording facts • Focuses on main ideas—relating facts, details, and examples to concepts • Invites questioning, evaluation, and reflection • Provides a system for recall

Five Steps of the System • Record notes in the main column • Refine with questions, corrections, underlining, recall cues, graphics, pictures • Recite by covering main column and expanding on recall cues; verify • Reflect on organization of material by studying all cues • Review by repeating Steps 3 and 4

Double Entry Journals • Left Side: Specific Text (may be teacher or student selected) • Right Side: Student Response (stance may range from personal to analytical)

Double Entry Journal Prompts: Ask Students for… • Comparisons to information learned earlier • Associations with information from other courses • Related personal experience • Effects of this information when applied in the world outside the classroom • Response to quotations from the text

Student Assumptions • Personal responses to academic information and literature are wrong or inappropriate • “Somewhere out there” is a RIGHT response • Learning consists of discovering the right response • Leaves students embarrassed to speak out for fear that their opinions are WRONG

Narratives – A Blend of the Personal and Academic • The prompt asks students to tap into their personal experience relating to the material taught (an inroad to prior knowledge) • Students build bridges from their lives to the concept they are studying.

Narratives - Examples Before beginning a unit on viruses, ask students to write about a time when they contracted a virus—how they felt, how it impacted their lives. Before beginning a lesson on The Seafarer, ask students to write about a time when they felt two different ways about the same event.

Brainstorming Before Writing • Provides a quick inventory of what students know or think they know about something • Students write down everything that comes to mind even if they are not sure it is “correct” • Focuses on quantity over quality • Fits at the beginning, middle, or end of a lesson

Brainstorming Example • Take a minute and list every important idea, concept, or detail that you can remember about our topic for today

Clustering or Mapping • Students jot down a key word in the center of a page, draw spokes outward, and in associative fashion write words connected with the key word in circles or balloons at the end of the spokes

Example

Clustering or Mapping • A way to encourage the surfacing of ideas that students may need for thinking or writing about a topic they are exploring—or to connect and review ideas they have learned as they study a particular chunk of content • A tool to help students uncover possibilities that are often overlooked in linear writing exercises

Drawing and Illustrating • Quick drawings, sketches, or diagrams to illustrate ideas, events, science experiments, real-world situations involving math problems, etc. • Words may be added in the form of explanations, labels, or listing of terms and ideas

Drawing and Illustrating • Re-expressing an idea in different modes often helps students understand complex ideas by calling attention to different aspects that are not revealed through words alone • May be blended with any of the writing exercises

Academic Discourse • Not absorbed culturally • Not intuitive • Analytical in nature • Tied to text • A unique linguistic structure depending on the content area

Academic Journals • A primary focus on the “what” (content, comprehension, and analysis) • Minimal focus on the “how” (format, framework of the language, mechanics)

How to Use Academic Journals • In-class response to homework • Quick-write to introduce a particular study • Response to discussion during class • Focused writing in preparation for a formal essay or research paper

Various Approaches for the Prompt • Personal • General • Specific • Reflective • Reactive • Analytical

Length of the Assignment Reminder: Short, spontaneous, unedited writing pieces help students engage and think about ideas Ideal length – one page (exactly) Forces planning Students search for support

Dialogues • Students write in response to a teacher’s prompt on the material presented. • Exchange journals with partners who write in response to the first entry.

Purpose of Dialogues • Generate written debate and discussion that may not happen out loud. • Allow students to discover new ideas that have not occurred to them before. • Encourage students to practice academic discussion.

Another Approach—Students Stop and Respond: Students trade journal entries with someone sitting next to them Each student reads and responds– about a minute for each entry

Teacher Response to Writing to Learn Activities • Collect after several entries or each time (preferred) • Check for student understanding and need to reteach • Skim for content – easy on the teacher • Grade for meeting requirements of the assignment, not for quality or correctness • Design follow-up mini-lessons to address any mechanical concerns that might surface

A Look at Language • The structure of language varies with each content area. • Analysis of written texts provides a foundation for increased comprehension and individual expression (reader response).

Step One: Create Interest in Language and Language Construction • Expose students to the SOUNDS of language in its simple and sophisticated forms • HEAR the rhythms and repetitions • HEAR the way parts of the sentence are ordered • HEAR the way words ebb and flow – the cadence of language • HEAR the sequence of ideas • HEAR the ways to make language flexible

The Reason? • Students cannot write if they cannot read. • A basic understanding of language is fundamental to the ability to manipulate language for effective communication. • Typical language patterns and constructions may be different in different subject areas, requiring reading flexibility.

Where Do You Start? • Pointing student attention to authentic language • How do we actually use words to communicate? How do we use words differently in different content areas?

Examining Word Usage • Help students develop a sense of the basic structure of English (a “slotted system”) • Most standard form: Who does what? (Subject - Action Verb – Direct Object: The dog chased the cat.) • Alternate form: Who is what? (Subject – Linking Verb – Subject Complement that either renames or describes the subject: John is a pilot.)

Build for Understanding by Focusing on the Sentence Core • Readers have to link the subject and verb in order to make sense of the sentence (essential to finding main ideas). • Additional words and phrases that modify the subject and verb expand the meaning of the sentence.

AVID Instructional Strategies: Writing to Learn