Writing for Learning in All Subjects
L. Lennie Irvin
San Antonio College
Entry Slip
• Write for two minutes
What makes writing an important tool for
learning?
• Sentence Starter:
• Writing helps promote learning because it _______________
3
Quick List
Draw a line under your entry slip. Listen and
make a list of the ways writing serves as a tool
for learning. Number this list. You need at least
six items.
What your notebook will look like
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Entry slip
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~
_____________
Quick List
1. ~~~~~~~~~
2. ~~~~~~~~~
3. ~~~~~~~~~
…
4
Writing as a Mode of
Learning
• Writing serves learning uniquely
because writing as process-andproduct possesses a cluster of
attributes that correspond
uniquely to certain powerful
learning strategies.
•
Writing helps promote learning because
it is …
•
Slower
•
Self-paced
•
A form of linguistic re-presentation (and
thus interpretation) and construction
(forming/shaping thinking)
•
Something that makes thinking visible—
rescanning and review
•
Analytic and synthetic
•
Active for hand, eye, and mind
•
Right-brained and left-brained
--Janet Emig
5
Write-to-Learn Principles
• According to cognitive research, people learn best when they:
• 1) Make subject matter personal and place it in the context of their
lives.
• 2) Connect new information with old, placing it in the context of what
they already know.
•
3) Articulate it, restating new information in their own words.
Writing serves as a powerful tool for accomplishing each of these
three pathways for learning.
6
Three Minute Paper
• On your index card,
write a short essay
explaining how writing
connects to learning.
• --use your Quick List to
help guide what you
will write.
7
Write-to-Learn
• Learning is the quintessential human activity. Language is the most
powerful learning tool we have. All students have a right to discover-or, perhaps, rediscover--the joys of learning and we should all recognize
that writing-to-learn is one of the best means of helping them to do so.
•
-John Mayher, et. al.
• It’s more difficult to convince teachers that writing is a learning
process than it is to convince them that talk is, because so often
teachers use writing as a way of testing. They use it to find out what
students already know, rather than as a way of encouraging them to
find out. The process of making the material their own--the process of
writing--is demonstrably a process of learning.
•
-James Britton
Peter Elbow’s Map of Writing in
Terms of Audience and Response
9
Beliefs Discouraging the Use of Writing
• Writing will require instructors to sacrifice valuable content
instruction for writing instruction.
Writing is a tool for teaching (and learning) content; it isn’t added
content as much as a means for reaching learning objectives.
• Instructors who teach with writing must have expertise in the
specifics of grammar and usage.
The main focus for teachers teaching with writing remains on
teaching their content—not grammar.
• Giving writing assignments will add considerably to grading time
(all writing must be graded and marked for correctness).
• Not all assignments have to be marked in detail. Many, if not all, can
be evaluated quite quickly.
10
Further Concepts About Writing that
Discourage Its Use
Writing is a content-area discipline (and it
ain’t mine).
Writing is a tool for thinking and learning in
all disciplines.
Because writing isn’t being tested, I don’t
need to use it in my classroom
Teach toward the TEKS and STAAR with all
the tools in your arsenal--writing too.
Writing is literary and expressive
Write from the heart and write about the
heart. “Writers” are not just artists.
11
• Writing works to
scaffold
• --the reading process
• --the writing process
• --the thinking process
• The read-write-think
process
12
Stop and Write
• Write about one
question or one thing
you are confused
about right now.
13
Effective Write-to-Learn Assignments…
One type of writing that facilitates learning is informal, relatively unstructured,
and has an emphasis more on what is said (the new ideas and concepts being
struggled with) than how it is said (correct spelling, grammar and usage). These
things are important, but to what extent depends on the purpose of the writing.
When students are writing to learn, their attention should be on ideas more than
on "correctness." If they later seek to convey this information to others, then
correctness becomes important.
•Are short (3-15 minutes)
• Ask students to write a word, a sentence, question, or a paragraph
or two (though it could be more)
• Are integrated (explicitly) into class content, objectives, and activity,
and, are optimally, utilized in subsequent class work
• Elicit multiple responses
• Where appropriate, receive some content-focused (versus mechanics-focused)
response
• Aren't formally graded, but count toward a portion of the grade
14
Write-to-Learn Activities
(a selected list)
• Freewriting
• Anticipatory Writing
• Entry Slip/Exit Slips
• Stop and Writes
• Sentence/Passage
Springboard
• Dialectical/Double Entry Notebook
• Writing Definitions
• Student-Formulated
Questions
• Journals/Learning Logs/Notebooks
• Process Journal/ Discussion Board
• Group Writing
• Short Summary
15
Freewriting
http://www.lirvin.net/WGuides/freew.htm
16
Process Journals (or Learning Logs)
•
Example Process Journal Prompt:
•
Read Trimble’s chapter 2 called
“Getting Launched,” and pick one
quote from that chapter to include in
this journal. Why did you pick this
quote? You have just finished (or are
about to finish) our first essay. Talk
about your own “getting launched”
process for this essay. What did you
do to get started with writing your
essay? How did it compare to
Trimble’s discussion about getting
launched? What can you take from
this experience and perhaps apply to
another situation where you have to
start a writing assignment?
•
• Writing about writing (learning)
--the goal of these journals is to get
them writing about their
writing/learning experience
• It is one kind of journal writing in the
class
--mixed with freewriting journals, done
weekly
• Purpose—abstract conceptualization,
constructed learning
--although grounded in specific
experience, their goal is to help
formulate larger understandings
(Example also of Sentence/Passage
Springboard.)
17
Example Process Journal
18
Informal Responses
http://www.lirvin.net/WGuides/ResponseThinkPieces.pdf
19
Summaries
http://www.lirvin.net/1302/Critical%20Summaries%2
0for%20the%20Short%20Story%20Project.pdf
20
Brainstorming for Reasons T-Chart
http://www.lirvin.net/WGuides/definereasons.htm
21
Textual Evidence Sheets
22
Double-entry Journal
23
Left-Right Side
Interactive Notebook
24
Left-Right Side
Interactive Notebook
25
Graphic Organizers: Tools for
Thought from Jim Burke
26
Graphic Organizers: Tools for
Thought from Jim Burke
27
Exit Slip
• Write for 2-4 minutes…
How might you write-to-learn
activities in your classroom?
28
References
Bean, John. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical
Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. (2011)
Burk, Jim. Tools for Thought. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2002.
Elbow, Peter. Everyone Can Write. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Emig, Janet. "Writing as a Mode of Learning." College Composition and
Communication 28.2 (1977):122-28.
Irvin, Lennie. Writing Guides. http://www.lirvin.net/WGuides/
“Teaching With Writing,” Center for Writing, University of Minnesota.
http://writing.umn.edu/tww/assignments/assignment_index.html
Write to Learn Activities, University of Richmond.
http://writing2.richmond.edu/wac/wtl.html
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Clearninghouse. http://wac.colostate.edu/