Why shouldn't you give students the opportunity to write often and regularly? If not you, then who?
In this entry, we will discuss why all content areas should have a focus on writing regularly in the classroom.
The Difference Between Writing to Learn and Learning to Write
When you are a math teacher, the idea of teaching a student to write can be overwhelming. Non-language arts teachers often feel they do not have the skills necessary to teach writing. This prevents them from incorporating a great technique, like Writing to Learn, in their classrooms. There is a big difference in teaching writing and having students write to learn. The key to having students write to learn, is to find authentic purposes for writing in your classroom, model your expectations around writing, allow ample time for students to practice before being graded, and offering genuine feedback so students can grow.
Authentic Purposes for Writing
Students must understand why they are writing in math class or art class before they can truly engage with the effort it takes to write. Teachers must be transparent about the many ways students will utilize writing in their lives, regardless of their occupations. Students must be able to see how professionals in the different subject ares are using writing. Students are already communicating with each other linguistically for several hours during the day, texting, emailing, posting on Facebook or Twitter. Writing can be both formal or informal. Students must see the importance of representing themselves positively through their writing and also, finding meaning in what they are learning through their writing. The following websites offer many writing assignment ideas to help you begin to incorporate writing or incorporate writing on a larger scale in your classroom.
English Language Arts Resources - List of several writing assignments.
Writing Across the Curriculum - This is a complete guide on the why and how of incorporating writing into your classroom.
Modeling Writing Expectations
If teachers don't see themselves as writers, how will they teach students the importance of writing regularly? You must start with yourself. You must begin to reflect on your teaching practices, your personal experiences and your professional decisions before you can engage students in writing.
You should always know your expectations for your student writing before assigning writing. When you know your expectations, I want students to write quietly for 3 minutes summarizing the day's learning, you are able to model this expectation, monitor it and evaluate the progress which leads to feedback. You have to get comfortable with modeling writing. Be honest with the students when you know you have some insecurities around spelling or grammar, let them know that the most important part of their writing is that they are writing to learn the concepts. Grammar and spelling are things that can be worked on and are worked on the in the language arts classroom. Prepare what you plan to model prior to your class, but write with your students and in front of your students even though you already know what you are going to write. In the beginning, this takes some of the anxiety out of modeling. Once you are more comfortable with modeling, you can model right in front of them without having written out exactly what you plan to model.
Most importantly, see yourself as a writer so that your students can see themselves as writers. Start writing in your free time as a way to professionally develop this skill. Writing is just like playing a sport, it takes time and practice.
Allow Time for Practice
Students need to get comfortable with writing before they start receiving grades on their writing. This does not mean you can't give feedback. In fact, you should be giving as much feedback to students on their writing, as regularly as possible. It can be as informal as a brief one on one conversation at the student's desk, to a rubric you've filled out based on their writing assignment. Students need that feedback so that they can set goals for improvement. Once you've modeled expectations for your students around their writing, they then need ample time to practice while receiving constant informal and some formal feedback.
Giving Genuine Feedback
Do not become overwhelmed with trying to enhance your student's writing around grammar and conventions. Be more concerned with is the student demonstrating an understanding of the concepts you've presented. Comment on the student's thinking rather than their writing. Only give 1-3 ways the student can improve their writing for next time. You do not want to discourage the student from writing in the future. You want them to know that their writing can and will grow with practice. Show students your own growth with writing through allowing them to see different drafts of your writing developed over time for the more formal writing assignments you assign. Write with your students so that they can see, not even teachers have perfect writing the first time around. It takes practice and constructive feedback for someone to improve. Give them examples of good writing that consists of the areas you wish for that student to focus. There are two major ways to give feedback on writing, written or orally. Informal conferencing tends to lend itself to the greatest growth, because it is tailored to the student's needs and it is easier for a student to understand than a note left on their paper.
Conversations with Student Writers is an excellent workshop for learning how to confer with your student writers.
A great resource for learning how to utilize writing in your classroom is the National Writing Project and the Greater Kansas City Writing Project.
Read Write Think is another great resource for writing to learn in your classroom.
ANNOTATING TEXT
Annotating a text, can help students make meaningful connections to what they are required to read. Annotation is a great resource to use to help students get started writing after reading quicker. If they've already thought through responses to the text while they were reading, it is easier for them to get started writing immediately after reading. Annotating makes summarizing less difficult, because a larger text is broken down in to small chunks while reading. Like with your expectations of writing, you must model, model, model annotating. The below link is a helpful article regarding how to go about annotating with your students.
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