Ch. 8 Writing to Learn in the Content Areas

     Writing is communicating your thoughts effectively and knowing your audience and purpose for writing.  Writing should be done across the content areas and students learn how to write by direct instruction, modeling, and practice.  The more student’s write, the better they will become as writers.  Often on-demand writing occurs when teachers have to prepare students for high stakes testing by giving them writing prompts.  When students only have to write to prepare for a writing test, the writing becomes boring, routine, and mundane.  Reading-writing connection establishes students to write about what they are going to read about, and after the reading is completed, they will write again to clarify what was read.

     As I have worked with Kindergarten students, you have a writing workshop where you model writing for students and you get them engaged in the writing process as well while you are working as a group.  They get excited to have input in the writing process and often enjoy writing when they have to write independently.  The writing may include a picture and they will elaborate on their ideas.  The students may not spell every word correctly and grammatical errors occur, however, your focus as a teacher is on their content (emergent literacy).

   Writing in the PAR Framework mirrors reading in the PAR framework.  In the preparation phase of writing, students discover what they know and ponder about what they what to learn.  There are strategies to get students to write in the beginning phase of the Preparation framework.

 Cubing is taking a cube and placing a task on each of the six sides.  The task are only considered for five minutes and may include these as suggestions:  1. Describe it, 2. Compare it, 3. Associate it, 4. Analyze it, 5. Apply it, and 6. Argue for or against it.   This activity helps eliminate writer’s block.

 Three Warm-Up Writing Activities: 

Quick Write:  Students are asked to jot down ideas and write for one or two minutes about the subject.

Free Write:  This writing activity takes between three to five minutes to write their perceptions of events without worrying about grammatical errors or correctness.

Student-Generated Questions:  Students write questions they would like answered about the topic to be studied. 

      In the assistance phase of writing, the students understand the topic and begin to write about the subject.  There are also strategies to assist with writing in the assistance phase. 

Learning Log:  This log should be written in daily to include topics such as:  “Two new ideas I learned this week,” or “How I felt about my progress in a particular subject.” 

Double-Entry Journal:  This journal includes the left side consisting of the student’s prior knowledge and the right side of the journal (after the reading) includes what they have learned after the reading.

Written Conversation:  Students work in pairs or triads in silent discussion.  Only a piece of paper and pencil is used to discuss the text.  Students are able to make predictions, infer, or make a personal connection.

Poetry:  Poetry is a strategy to get students to write.  Two of which I love to use myself in the classroom is the Biopoem and the Cinquain.  I would like to try the Geopoem, the See What I Found, and the First-Person Summary.  These are all great ideas. J

 
    The reflection phase of PAR is the finished product.  Teachers should do all they can to place their student’s work in a place where it could be viewed by others.  Students will write better for you when they know someone is there to view their final writing piece.  Some strategies for the reflection phase of PAR are:  Content-Focused Drama:  Students working together to create a melodrama by writing the plot, developing the characters, and making scenery.  The students prewrite, compose the draft, and conference with the teacher.

C3B4ME (See Three Before Me) Students see three other helpers before submitting their assignment to the teacher.  Students must first think critically about his work.  Next he should confer with a peer about his work and ask for specific advice.  Lastly, the writer should consult with a reading associate.

GIST (generating interactions between schemata and text) Students write a summary of information they read from the text to eliminate unnecessary information and include key concepts.  The summary should be 30 or fewer words.

Short Sentences:  Research a topic and write between one to three informative paragraphs to describe their subject using action words.  Sentences are limited to five or fewer words.

     At risk and struggling readers need more modeling, guidance, and encouragement to write more effectively.  If the content is intertwined with a story, it is more than likely the students will remember the content.  They should also have the liberty to choose what they would like to write about.