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?
Brittany,
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I agree most with you is about the rubrics and checklists. I would definitely be one of those teachers that would be discouraged from a stack of papers needed to be graded. That is such tedious work, and I would have to really be excited about the paper to take the time to grade them. Being a future English teacher, do you think there are ways that you, yourself, could encourage other subject area teachers to include writing in their classrooms? Being a Spanish teacher, I would find it hard to incorporate writing to learn in my curriculum.
Hayley
Time is something teachers clearly do not have enough of each day. However, writing an essay is a process, particularly one many students do not enjoy. Therefore, it is critical we get our students involved in writing activities that are effective and fun for students. For example, using technology, we can allow our students to blog, communicate using social networks, create a class newsletter or newspaper, and much more. When we give our students an assignment, we should strive to anticipate their reactions and level of motivation toward the assignment. There seems to be a strong correlation between level of motivation and academic performance. Using worksheets and more traditional means of writing in a classroom, students are extremely likely to complain and dread the assignment. However, if they are writing an article that will be published in the local newspaper, they are going to enjoy learning.
ReplyDeleteBrittany,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Writing to learn can be a great tool to use in content area classes because as teachers, we will be able to see what our students already know. I know that teachers already have enough material to grade, but I think that we can incorporate writing to learn activities in the class and not actually grade them, but review them. Having rubrics and checklist are great tools for teachers to have. They help the grading process move smoothly.
Erin