From the perspective of a future English teacher,
the difference in writing to learn and learning to write never actually occurred
to me. Although there is a significant difference, it is not up to only the English
teachers to implement this in their classroom. Of course learning to write is
done in the English class because it is a process of steps to get to one final
draft. On the other hand, writing to learn is the opportunity for students to
gain a deeper understanding and allows them to reflect on their own knowledge.
It creates meaning and establishes good comprehension. Writing to learn also
includes three kinds of knowledge: declarative, procedural, and conditional.
I never realized how many different styles of
writing to learn could be incorporated in the everyday classroom and in all
content areas. Some styles that stood out to me the most were; quick writes, micro
themes, famed paragraphs, admit/exit slips, and RAFT. These writing to learn
styles are styles that I would include in my future classroom.
A personal connection I made with this week's
reading was about using rubrics and checklists. Realistically, teachers do not
have time to sit around and grade essay after essay. Grading stacks of papers
does not sound very appealing. This thought can discourage a teacher from even
assigning large writing projects. But thanks to rubrics and checklists, grading
is much simpler and is an excellent way to address whether or not a student
wrote a good paper. I plan to teach English one day so I hope to utilize using
rubrics and checklists in my classroom.
Questions:
1. Which techniques or "Writing to Learn" styles work best with certain grade levels?
2. Does this primarily benefit the Upper Elementary grades?
