Writing Across
the Curriculum:
“Writing to Learn, Learning to Write”
Nicki Guthrie
Don Kappel
East Carteret High School
Today’s Agenda
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Definition of writing across the curriculum
Myths
Writing continuum
Rationale
Informal writing strategies (detailed)
Semiformal writing, formal writing, and essay
tests (quick)
Website info.
What is Writing Across the
Curriculum?
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Teaching practice based on the idea that the
faculty as a whole, not just one academic
department, is responsible for students’ writing
skills
Other names for WAC:
Writing in the disciplines
 Writing to learn
 Writing in the content areas
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Maine Department of Education. http://www.maine.gov/education/highered/Glossary/Glossary.htm, 2007.
Let’s Write…
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Spend five minutes freely writing about your
beliefs, thoughts, concerns, etc. about WAC.
Myths about WAC
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Takes away time for content
Unsuitable for some courses
Requires expertise in
writing/grammar
Creates mountain of paper
grading
Takes Away Time for Content
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Writing about concepts helps
achieve more learning
Less time spent
reviewing/reteaching
Writing in the place of discussion,
worksheets, etc
Writing is not added to content,
but used as a way to teach content
Unsuitable for Some Courses
Is your class too large?
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Use writing to make
students more
responsible for own
learning
Is your class hands-on, experiential?
(Band, PE, Auto tech)
 Use writing to help students reflect about
their activities
•Lindeman, Erika. Center for Teaching and Learning, UNC-Chapel Hill, http://ctl.unc.edu/fyc4.html
Requires Expertise in
Writing/Grammar
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Respond as an expert in your
field, not an expert in writing
Focus on higher-order
concerns first
Always find something to
praise
Address patterns of errors
and your pet peeves
Grammar unimportant in
informal writing
Creates Mountain of Paper Grading
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Grade with a check
plus/check/check minus
system
Collect randomly
Create checklist rubrics
Respond to the class as a
whole
Conduct peer review
Assign mostly informal
writing
Writing Continuum
INFORMAL
Journals
Reading Logs
Reflections
Minute papers
Blogs
FORMAL
Response papers
Summaries
Mini-cases
Problem analyses
Term papers
Reports
Formal essays
Documented
papers
Reviews
Anson, Chris. ITUE 10th Annual Symposium. NC State University. http://www.udel.edu/inst/june2007/ansonfiles/assignPM.pdf
Formal v. Informal Writing
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Informal writing is
usually
 low stakes
 an early draft
 personal
 thinking-on-paper
 “mechanics” are
unimportant
 “writing-to-learn”
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Formal writing is usually
 high stakes
 a much later draft
 public
 analytical or critical
 “mechanics” are important
 “writing-to-communicate”
http://teachandlearn.missouri.edu/guide/chapters/writing.htm
Informal Writing Is…Writing to Think
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“[Cognitive psychologists] … suggest that the
writing process regularly involves the types of
cognition generally labeled `thinking':
discrimination, classification, specification,
generalization, hypothesis formation and testing.
In many cases, writing is not merely an aid to
thinking: writing is thinking.”
1986 report to the UNC Faculty Council, the Ad Hoc Committee on Writing Across the Curriculum, Center for
Teaching and Learning, UNC-Chapel Hill, http://ctl.unc.edu/fyc4.html
Informal Writing Is...Writing to Learn
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“The process of
making the material
their own--the process
of writing--is
demonstrably a
process of learning.”
•Britton, James. http://writing2.richmond.edu/wac/wtl.html
Informal Writing Is…Writing to Write
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“Writing skills have to be practiced and
reinforced if they're to get better. And some
students choose courses where little writing is
required.”
Research shows that as students advance in a
subject their communication skills in that
discipline diminish unless they are constantly
reinforced.
-Erika Lindeman, Center for Teaching and Learning, UNC-Chapel Hill, http://ctl.unc.edu/fyc4.html
-Costello, Chris. “Integrating Written, Oral, Visual, and Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum”
Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 1999.
An Analogy…
If
students practiced running in all of their classes:
All students would be proficient runners.
 All students would improve their times.
 All students would experience less
anxiety.
 Some students would start to love
running.
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Writing and Basketball
(Another Sports Analogy)…
Imagine being successfully by…
Practicing only in high-stakes games
 Never practicing
 Never being allowed to mess up
without consequences
 Rarely working with other players
 Being advised to just watch pros on
TV
 Playing infrequently
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Anson, Chris. ITUE 10th Annual Symposium. NC State University. http://www.udel.edu/inst/june2007/ansonfiles/assignPM.pdf
Yet, Here’s How We Do It…
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The dominant model:
 Writing only high-stakes papers
 Never practicing
 Never being allowed to mess up without
consequences
 Rarely working with other writers
 Being advised to look at only professional
writing
 Writing infrequently
Anson, Chris. ITUE 10th Annual Symposium. NC State University. http://www.udel.edu/inst/june2007/ansonfiles/assignPM.pdf
Characteristics of Informal Writing
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May be list-like
Loosely structured
Written to self
May begin/end abruptly
May be agrammatical
Spontaneous
Varied in length
It’s messy
because
thought is
messy!
Anson, Chris. ITUE 10th Annual Symposium. NC State University. http://www.udel.edu/inst/june2007/ansonfiles/assignPM.pdf
Getting Started
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Ask yourself two questions:
1. What do I want my students to learn?
2. How can writing assist that learning?
Erika Lindeman, Center for Teaching and Learning, UNC-Chapel Hill, http://ctl.unc.edu/fyc4.html
Ways to Use Informal Writing
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Writing at the beginning of class to…
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probe a subject
Writing during class to…
refocus a lagging discussion or cool off a heated
one.
 ask questions or express confusion.
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Writing at the end of class to…
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sum up a lecture or discussion.
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the
Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001.
Journals
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Can be open-ended or structured:
Learning logs
 Reading logs
 Guided journals
 Double-entry notebooks
 Lab notebooks
 Current events journals
 Exam preparation journals
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Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the
Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001.
15 Strategies Handout
Connections
Unresolved Lab
Problems
Voices
Exam preparation
Problems with the
Problem
Newsworthy Explanations
Debate on
Propositions
Dialogue Journals
This Was the Week
That Was
Discussion
Questions
Visual Representations
Mini-Cases
Double-Entry
Notebook
The “Provided
Data” Mini-Paper
Summary Statements
More Informal Strategies
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Letters to the author /scientist / historical figure
Extended analogies
Think-Pair-Share
Discipline-specific writing
Social studies: Biographies, interviews
 Science: Lab reports, grant proposals
 Math: Descriptions of mathematical theories
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Acrostic poems
An Acrostic Poem Example
Gregor Mendel’s
 Experiments
 Now are
 Evidence
 That offspring
 Inherit parents’
 Characteristics, like in
 Spring peas and honeybees.
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Some Semi-Formal Strategies
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Require some pre-planning
Take longer to complete
Graded still for ideas mostly, but also need to
address presentation of ideas
Can’t expect perfection unless they are given
opportunity to revise
A Math Example…
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In class yesterday, 80 percent of you agreed
with this statement: “the maximum speed of a
sailboat occurs when the boat is ailing in the
same direction as the wind.” However, that
intuitive answer is wrong. Sailboats can actually
go much faster when they sail across the wind.
How so? Using what you have been learning in
vector algebra, explain why sailboats can sail
faster when the wind blows sideways to their
direction of travel rather than from directly
behind them.
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the
Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001.
A Psychology Example…
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In the morning, when Mr. Cat opens a new can
of cat food, his cats run into the kitchen
purring and meowing and rubbing their backs
against his legs. What examples, if any, of
classical conditioning, operant conditioning,
and social learning are at work in this scene?
Note that both the cats and the professor
might be exhibiting conditioned behavior here.
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the
Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001.
A Science Example…
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Dear Dr. Science:
My girlfriend and I disagree about something we
saw in a baseball game. A guy hit a pop-up
straight over the catcher’s head. My girlfriend
thinks that when the ball stopped in midair
before it started down, its velocity was zero, but
its acceleration was not zero. I said she was
stupid. If something isn’t moving at all, how
could it have any acceleration? Dr. Science,
please help us…
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the
Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001.
Tips for Formal Writing
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Prepare a detailed student handout
Treat writing as a process:
Prewriting
 Drafting
 Revision
 Editing
 Publishing
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Give feedback early in the process
Successful Essay Tests / Exams
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Consider revealing questions in advance
Consider allowing crib sheets
Limit choice
Keep questions simple
Essay exams can’t take place of WTL activities
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the
Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001.
A Final Concern…
Won’t
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the writing just be busy work?
“The relationship between the amount of writing in
a course and the student’s level of engagement —
whether engagement is measured by time spent on
the course, or the intellectual challenge it presents, or
students’ self-reported level of interest in it —
is stronger than any relationship we found between
student engagement and any other course characteristic.”
The Harvard Assessment Seminars, Second Report,
1992.http://www.udel.edu/inst/june2007/anson-files/assignPM.pdf
Check Out the Website!
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You can find this presentation, general
information, and subject-specific information:
ECHS WRITING:
http://echswriting.wordpress.com