Writing in the content areas

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Writing in the content areas
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Product-centered views of writing were replaced
with process-centered views of writing.

• Process writing
• Situated learning
• Multicultural urban classrooms

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The belief that writing promotes learning.

• A cultural tool to build and examine knowledge
• Writing provides a means to explore and make
  sense of ideas and experiences
• Writing can alter the role of the teacher, the
  role of the student while changing the value of
  knowledge in the content areas.
• Writing across the disciplines can help students
  learn about the wide range of genres and formats
  used in various content areas.
• Types of writing
• Restricted writing
• Summary writing
• Analytical writing

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The understanding that writing furthers
constructivism.

• Writing is a meaning construction process that
  activates knowledge held in memory including
  world knowledge, text structure knowledge,
  metacognitive knowledge, and knowledge of the
  mechanics of writing
• Writing can also be used to promote
  constructivism in the form of knowledge-building
  whereby students use writing to learn through
  inquiry. (WAC)

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The development of the National Writing Project.

• A format in which teachers using writing in the
  schools can meet with other teachers to improve
  student writing.
• In 1974 at the University of California, Berkeley
  the first Summer Institute of the Bay Area
  Writing Project took place.
• The National writing project emerged in the late
  1970s.

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Basic Assumptions of the NWP

• Teachers learn well from other teachers because
  of their credibility.
• Writing is a tool that facilitates learning in
  science, math, history, and other disciplines as
  well as in English.
• Teachers who teach writing write.
• To be effective, professional development
  programs must be on-going so that teachers come
  together throughout their careers to exchange
  ideas about writing.
• Teachers must be free to participate voluntarily
  in NWP programs.
• Knowledge about teaching writing comes from both
  research and classroom practice.
• The NWP encourages the critical examination of a
  variety of approaches to the teaching of writing
  and promotes no single writing pedagogy.
• Working together, teachers and universities can
  guide and support school reform (National Writing
  Project, 2001).

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Categories of Writing

• Writing to assess learning
• When composing students have to construct and
  organize knowledge from what they have learned
  and stored away.
• Writing for evaluative purposes limits the amount
  of enrichment students can gain from writing.
• Formulaic writing curtails students analytical
  thinking and writing skills.
• Use of process writing and rubrics and address
  some of the above concerns

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• Writing to promote learning.
• Exploratory writing (writing that enables us to
  discover what we want to say).
• Make sense of ideas
• Construct new understandings
• Make new connections
• Generate questions
• Monitor understanding

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Ways to engage students in exploratory writing

• Admit and exit slips
• Freewrites
• Question papers
• Skeletons (Pressnall, 1995)
• In the 1960s Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X,
  Thurgood Marshall and others tried to change a
  few things. They had many goals. They tried many
  tactics. They met resistance. They met success.
• DEAD (drop everything and draft)
• SNAP (Stop now and process)

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• RAFTing
• Role
• Audience
• Format
• Topic

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• Writing to observe student work
• Reveals student thinking and learning visible.
• It confirms progress in learning.
• It shows breakdowns in thinking and learning.
• Allows teachers to plan for instructional
  decisions through observations of students
  writing.