WRITING TO LEARN

“Writing is a tool that enables people in every discipline to wrestle with facts and ideas.  It’s a physical activity, unlike reading. Writing requires us to operate some kind of mechanism – pencil, pen, typewriter, word processor – for getting our thoughts on paper.  . . . It forces us to keep asking, ‘Am I saying what I want to say?’ . . . It’s by writing about a subject we’re trying to learn that we reason our way to what it means.”

                                                                        William Zinsser in Learning to Write

 

Although my area of teaching was language arts, writing is not just for language arts!  I have interacted with educators from all disciplines. Through our discussions and sharing, we discovered ways that writing could definitely benefit students in all subject areas.  Using writing as a tool for learning helps to organize, channel and give extra leverage to thinking.  

 

This kind of writing works best when it is 

•       Frequent

•       Short

•       Spontaneous

•       Exploratory

•       Informal

•       Personal

•       Unedited

•       Ungraded

 

Ask yourself:

·     How do you use writing to introduce a subject and to find out what students already know?

·     How do you use writing to help students gain control of the subject material?

·     How do you use writing to help students clarify their understanding of what they are learning?

·     How do you use writing to help students know themselves and to help you to know them?

 

During my work with the Minnesota Writing Project, I was fortunate to gain several helpful ideas from a master St. Paul educator.  Here are a few of them to try in your classroom.

 

·     Admit slips – Have students turn in short pieces of writing on pre-assigned topic upon entering the classroom.

·     Start-up write – Have students write for the first five minutes of class time on the topic of the upcoming lesson.

·     K-W-L – When a topic is being introduced, have students make a list of all they already Know about the subject, Want to investigate.  After completing the lesson, have them make a list of what they’ve Learned.

·     Clustering – Put a key term, concept or name in a circle in the center of the page and then write all associations with that term in whatever pattern “seems right.” Often clustering reveals unrecognized connections/relationships.

·     Stop and write – Pause the video, discussion, etc. and ask students to write and reflect.

·     Double entry – Divide a page and on one side have students put quotations, problems, etc. On the other side, have them write reaction, explanation, question, etc.

·     Visualize – Have students draw a picture, diagram, or model to demonstrate what they know.

·     Exit slips – Have students do a short piece of writing (summary, question) before exiting the class.  (These can be a helpful in learning what students understand and where they have confusion.)

 

Our next posts will share even more ways to use writing to learn.  Why not share some of the ways that you use writing to learn in your classroom?