SPRING LEARNING
COLLOQUIUM
WRITING STRATEGIES
Cara Mulcahy
Department of Reading and Language
Arts
Kim Nardi
Teacher Candidate
RDG 412: Literacy in the Elementary School
• This course is taken the semester before student teaching.
• It is the third reading course students in Elementary Education are
required to take.
• There is a strong focus on the Language Arts
Write-Into-The-Day Journal
• I was introduced to this strategy by the Central Connecticut State
University Writing Project
• Each day of the summer institute began with a “write-into-the-day”
prompt.
• The “write-into-the-day journal” embeds writing into the course
structure.
The write into the day journal served two
purposes in RDG 412
•To reflect on content.
•To generate ideas for writing.
Advantages of Journal Writing
• It integrates active learning with cognitive strategies which allows
students to “organize learning contents into a coherent structure
and integrate new information with existing knowledge” enabling
understanding and retention (Nückles et al., 2010).
• It reinforces metacognition (Nückles et al., 2010).
• It provides a means to explore and make sense of ideas and
experiences.
• It allows for short writing assignments which are less intimidating
and allow the writer a better chance of finding his or her voice
(Kittle & Graves, 2005).
Prompts
• During the first half of the semester students received prompts
related to course content.
• The purpose of the prompts was to engage students in write-tolearn activities whereby students reflected upon course readings
and course content.
• As Nückles et al. (2010) state a learning journal “is an opportunity to
apply beneficial cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies in
order to deepen and expand the newly acquired knowledge” (p.
238).
Prompts
• During the second half of the semester students were given
prompts that helped generated ideas and topics for writing.
• The write-into-the-day journals also demonstrated the advantages
of keeping a writer’s notebook.
• A writer’s notebook is a low-risk, high-comfort place for students to
write, develop ideas, and express their ideas and words (Fletcher &
Portalupi, 2001; Rief, 2003).
Quick Writes
• “can be used as a way to uncover or generate ideas worth writing
about” (Graves & Kittle, 2005, p. 2).
• “stimulate students thinking” (Rief, 2003, p. 8).
• help students and teachers “find their voices and develop their
confidence, as they discover that they have important things to
say” (2003, Rief, p.8).
Content Related Prompts
• Think of your own developmental path as a reader and writer. What are
your early memories and experiences of reading and writing? How has
that influenced who you are today as a reader and writer? Do you
consider yourself a reader? A writer?
• What was one of the most important points Harste makes in his article
and what was one thing that surprised you in his article?
• Respond to the quote….
• Explain how your understanding of literacy has developed since the
beginning of the semester. Discuss the connection between the language
arts and literacy instruction, and between ideology and literacy
instruction.
Writing Prompts to Generate Writing Ideas
• What stories do your hands tell? Trace around your hand and fill it
in with memories that are connected to your hands.
• List five books that are important to you. Choose one and write
about how it has affected your life.
• Bring in three artifacts that are important to your life. Explain what
each one is and why it is important to you.
• Make a list of the 11 best moments in your life. Make a list of the 7
worst moments in your life. Write about one of the moments listed
above.
Think of your own developmental path as a
reader and writer.
What stories do your hands tell? Trace around your hand and fill t
in with memories that are connected to your hands.
Group Poem
Outcomes
• Content area prompts allowed students the opportunity to write
their thoughts before engaging in a whole class discussion.
• Generated some good class discussions around the course readings.
• Provided me with insights into student learning and understanding.
Outcomes
• Introduced students to a variety of activities to help their future
students develop writing topics.
• Allowed students identify a topic they wanted to write about for
their personal piece.
• It seems the majority of the pieces were personal narratives.
Future Thoughts
• Write-to-learn prompts should allow students to demonstrate their
understanding of the readings and to reflect and elaborate upon
their thoughts about the reading.
• Allow for a fading away of the write-to-learn prompts as the
semester progresses.
• Allow for more student choice when developing prompts that
generate writing ideas.