Creating a Positive Feedback Loop: Using
Writing-to-Learn Activities to Enhance Student
Learning and Focus Your Teaching
Janet Chung
Seattle University School of Law
12th Biennial Conference of
The Legal Writing Institute
Atlanta, Georgia, June 8, 2006
Presentation Objectives:
• Provide an introduction to the learning theories supporting
the use of writing-to-learn activities, including key concepts
and terminology
• Present a sampling of different writing-to-learn activities that
can be incorporated into the curriculum
• Provide an opportunity to discuss how to address logistical
challenges, such as deciding optimal timing for such activities
in the curriculum and how to use related student work
product to improve teaching without increasing professor
workload
Free Write Exercise
• Please see page 3 of your handout.
What Is Writing to Learn?
• “Writing is how we think our way into a
subject and make it our own. Writing enables
us to find out what we know – and what we
don’t know – about whatever we’re trying to
learn.” (Zinsser)
• “[W]riting is viewed as a means, as a tool, for
learning more information, or for coming to a
more confident understanding of ideas that
are still in development.” (J. Marshall, cited in
Lysaght & Lockwood)
What is Metacognition?
• Thinking about thinking.
Writing as a Product: Think, then write
• A.k.a. positivist, formalist, instrumentalist
• Teacher talks about rules of writing,
organization, and editing
• Writer uses written word to record or
transcribe thoughts onto paper – i.e. the
hand takes dictation from the brain
(Beazley)
• Teacher grades the final product
Positivist Model of the Writing Process
1. Choose a topic.
2. Narrow it.
3. Write a thesis.
4. Make an outline.
5. Write a draft.
6. Revise.
7. Edit.
(Bean)
Writing as a Process:
Thinking through writing
• Critical, epistemic, constructivist
• Writer’s dialogue about subject (either with
self or with others/teacher) produces fuller,
deeper, complex knowledge
• Writers work recursively on research,
writing, and revision
• Written product moves from writer-based
(used to help writer “make meaning”) to
reader-based (used to communicate)
Reader-based aspect of legal writing
• Social perspective, or social constructionist:
Writer must understand the social context, or
discourse community, within which writing takes
place
• Thus, legal writers follow rules and conventions
(format, grammar and citation, etc.)
• to gain credibility with readers (e.g., judges and clerks)
and
• because the legal reader expects this form of
information, analysis, and presentation
The Writing Process
•
•
•
•
•
Identification of a problem
Exploration/research
First draft
Reformulation or re-vision
Editing
(Bean)
How Students Learn: Schema Theory
• Focus is on how mind processes
information
• Mind receives information and tries to
place it within individual’s existing
knowledge structure
• Internal mental structures organize
information into schema, or meaningful
organizations of concepts
Schema Theory: Building New Structures
• Working memory is limited
• Images
• Serial position (first, last)
• Long-term memory is where substantive
doctrines and concepts are stored
• Learning occurs when cognitive structures are
modified or created
• Experts possess cognitive structures organized
for a subject and can easily access schemas to
assist in problem-solving within the conventions
of the applicable discourse
Metacognition Defined
• Thinking about thinking – continuous
recognition of and reflection on how the
individual learns
• If students think about how they learn, they
can better employ learning methods to
develop schema
“It’s not teaching that causes learning.
Attempts by the learner to perform cause
learning, dependent upon the quality of
feedback and opportunities to use it.”
(G. Wiggins, cited by T. Huston & P. Lustbader,
2005 Seattle U. New Faculty Institute presentation)
Self-Regulated Learning Cycle (recursive)
Forethought
(goal-setting, planning, etc.)
Performance
(implementation,
self-monitoring, etc.)
Reflection
(self-evaluation, adaptation, etc.)
Teacher’s Role in Helping Novices
Become Experts
• Promote self-regulated (autonomous)
learning by helping students assume
responsibility for their own learning
processes
• Engage in own self-regulated learning
process vis-à-vis teaching
Note: Writing is not knowledge-transforming
when …
• The writer is simply presenting information that s/he
knows well and
• The writing task interferes with the type of learning
being sought
• Example: student’s goal is simply to memorize a rule –
an exercise that requires more than simply copying the
rule may result in worse, rather than better, recall of that
rule
• Instead of spending time rehearsing the information to be
memorized, student spends time thinking about the
composing process itself (e.g. sentence structure,
punctuation, spelling)
(Oates)
Writing-to-Learn Activities for the
Legal Writing Classroom
• Research/planning
• Drafting/revising
• Reflection
• Note: professor should engage in
research/planning in designing the exercise
Research/planning
• Reading journals – “think alouds” as they
read cases
• Annotated research logs (why did they
choose a source, their assessment, where
does the source point them to next, etc.)
Sample Case Chart
CASE NAME
ELEMENT or
FACTOR
RULES
FACTS,
HOLDING,
REASONING
FACTS TO
COMPARE IN
OUR CASE
Research/planning: Sample
reflective questions
1. Did you face any obstacles in getting started with your research? If you did, what did
you do to overcome this obstacle?
2. Did you try any new strategies in recording your research efficiently? For example,
did you make handwritten annotations on printouts; did you copy and paste material
from online research results; or did you create charts to organize information from
cases? If you did not use new strategies, what strategies did you use that you used
before in researching prior memos? Please describe.
3. If you used a new strategy, how would you evaluate the effectiveness of the new
strategy or strategies? Did it help make your research and preliminary analysis more
efficient? Or, if you did not use any new strategies, are there strategies you have
tried before but decided not to use this time?
4. Based on your research so far, have you identified more specific questions in addition
to your preliminary research question – either legal questions for further research, or
questions about the facts that require further investigation? If yes, what are those
questions?
Drafting/revising
• Electronic discussion board (e.g., TWEN)
• students can post or respond to questions
• students post results of group work (outlines,
drafts)
• Annotated drafts: use Microsoft Word
comment function to record reflections and
questions
Drafting/revising
• Private memos – along with draft, students
record thoughts and anxieties that
occurred while writing (Beazley)
• Self-graded draft – students highlight or
annotate to identify types of information
that reader expects to find – rule, rule
explanation/proof, application of rules to
facts
Reflection
• Free write at end of project on questions
posed by professor
• Ask students to reflect on various stages of
process
• Letters to “future self” (e.g., addressing
“what I wish I’d known”) to be returned to
student at some later point
• Guided journals
• Annotated portfolios
Reflection: Sample questions
1. What part of the memo-writing process was most
challenging for you with Memo 4? (Examples are starting
the research, finding cases, analyzing cases, organizing
your research results, organizing the written draft, citechecking – or any other stage of the process that you can
identify.)
2. What did you do to meet this challenge and overcome any
obstacles at this point in the research/writing process?
3. In terms of the organization of this memo, what were some
similarities with other memos you have done for this class?
What were some differences?
Sample response to Q about reading
strategies for memo v. class
This is very different than analyzing cases in my
other law classes because all I’m doing there is
basically trying to answer, “what is the point, or
rule, of this case?” This is consistent with the
first step in legal writing, but I have to go the next
step in this class and determine how I would
apply this rule to my fact pattern. Come to think
of it, I do have to do this when I take a final exam
in my other classes, in that I have to apply the
rules to the fact pattern in the test question. OK,
maybe the strategies are similar; I just didn’t
realize it until just now.
Designing a Writing-to-Learn Activity
for Your Class
Please turn to page 5 of the handout.
Working in groups of 3-4,
• Select an activity
• Identify challenges to implementing this
activity in your class
• Identify solutions to each challenge
What to do with the feedback?
Note: The assumption is that for the student,
there is some learning just in doing the activity,
regardless of whether you provide feedback.
• When is it appropriate to respond?
• Are there times that you should not respond?
• Are there times that you are obligated to
respond?
Sample response to Q about what were
areas that continued to challenge student
“I’m not Mr. Detail. I’m a writer without the talent.
I see the big picture, get excited, and then grab a
tub of ice cream and watch the tele. Any time I
have to focus on detail and arbitrary rules I react
badly and feel sleepy and frustrated. If I had the
talent I would just be a moody writer, but alas I
must churn out memos instead. I need
discipline, and a more serious approach.
Lawyers are such serious, neurotic people, and
they don’t watch much TV either.”
Focus Write
What are two ideas, principles, techniques,
or attitudes that you want to remember
when you are engaged in the teaching and
learning process?
1.
2.