Writing Across the Curriculum

Nicole Lobello ~ SMP English Dept.

SMP English Department

Karen Ladmirault Nicole Lobello Shelly Leblanc

Stephanie Fournet Emily Ardoin

Liz Harris Tremblay

Why write in history, science, math…?

Writing = Communication

Our technological world filled with emails, desktop publishing, and the Internet begs the question…“How can we in good conscience distinguish between ‘writers and non-writers’ in our classes?”

Writing aids retention (aids recall and cements concepts in the brain), increases depth of knowledge in a subject, develops critical thinking skills, and fosters independent thinking

Students must be able to write…communicate thought/ideas…in every single subject in order to be fully prepared to succeed in universities and adult work environments.

Why have students write in your class?

Written output is an exceptional way to measure students’ deeper understanding and knowledge of content material

Helping students learn to express themselves with confidence in all subject areas can contribute to improvements in behavior and self-esteem

Writing engages ALL students—not just the ones who always raise their hands during class discussions

Writing helps teachers see “gaps” in instruction and student understanding

Students who write clearly think clearly, and students who think clearly have a better chance of navigating their way through adolescent and adult life.

Writing is power! Writing gives students a voice!

How do I support my students in writing?

A Good Writing RecipeEstablish constructive purposes for student writing

Find real audiences (beyond the teacher)

Demonstrate the process mature writers go through

Teach students how to help one another; organize activities that foster collaboration

Show students that it is safe to ask for help

WRITE WITH YOUR STUDENTS

When assigning formal pieces of writing, base the student work

schedule on the 7 steps of writing.Brainstorming (group work or class discussion)

Pre-writing (group work or journal/homework assignment)

Rough Draft

Peer Review (pair & share)

Revising (structure/content)

Editing (proofreading)

Publishing (final draft)

MODEL writing process activities for your students in each of the seven stages

Let them SEE how YOU would handle a particular task in the writing process

After rough drafts have been completed, allot time

in class for sharing

During the peer review/responding stage, establish the classroom as the primary

audience for student work. Students who write just for their teachers often write in

a stilted way that hides their true abilities/thoughts. Widening their audience = widening their exploration of thoughts :)

Make a very big deal out of the publishing stage. This helps students “buy into” the

assignment and take more care in their finished product. It also allows them to enjoy the fruits of their labors, and encourages them to reflect on their work. Look for legitimate publishing

opportunities for your students, both in school and out. If possible, get

together with other teachers in the same subject area and/or grade level

to share student work between different classes in a formal setting.

LITERATURE

MATH

SCIENCE

SOCIAL STUDIES

“The Standards insist that instruction in reading, writing, speaking, lis-tening, and language be a shared responsibility within the school.” (Key

Design Consideration, CCSS Introduction)

“The traits of writing are the six observable, assessable, revisable and editable features that characterize all writing.”

(“Traits and the Writing Process,” Rebecca Bowers Sipe, Ed.D.)

Invite students to brainstorm potential topics in writer’s notebooks and keep reading journals to track response to literature.

Show how numbers communicate ideas by analyzing data (e.g., “percentage of kids who think school lunch could be improved”).

Help students form scientific hypotheses, test them through experimentation and take notes documenting the results.

Encourage kids to brainstorm topics for an argumentative essay by taking a perspective on history, like the causes of the Civil War.

Use index cards to sequence events in literature and demonstrate how stories have a beginning, middle and an end.

Try depicting the same data in different ways (e.g., bar graph, pie chart, T-chart) to see which is the most effective.

Give students a template for a lab report. Once they’ve mastered it, encourage them to experiment organizing their results in different ways.

Talk about the differences in organizing a historical argument versus constructing a timeline of events.

Introduce tone by giving students a blank face-shaped template and having them draw the appropriate expression for a given story.

Discuss phrases mathematicians use to convey their thinking and how the differences impact tone (e.g., “estimate” vs. “correct answer”).

Talk about why scientists typically use a serious tone to describe their work. How would including a joke credit or discredit their results?

Analyze the voice in various primary source documents. How does the tone add to our knowledge of the time period?

Keep lists of words that are suited for different types of writing (e.g., opinion writing, response to literature, narrative writing).

When solving a problem, challenge students to be precise in explaining their reasoning, using as few words as possible.

Discuss how some words have different meanings when used in a scientific context (e.g., “theory”).

Talk about how the words we use to describe historical events often change over time (e.g., the different labels assigned to 9/11).

Give students a basic sentence and have them manipulate the words and meaning, coming up with as many variations as they can.

After solving a problem, challenge students to explain their reasoning using varied, interesting sentence structure.

Discuss how fluency lends credibility to scientific writing (e.g., it can seem simplistic to have sentences that all start or sound the same).

Ask students how “The Gettsyburg Address” would be different, for example, if all of the sentences began or ended the same way.

Have students edit one another’s work for conventions. Provide a list of grammar, usage, mechanics rules and editing marks for students to use.

Compare mathematical symbols to punctuation. How does the meaning change, for example, with an inequality instead of an equal sign?

Talk about the need for precision in scientific writing. Why do conventions such as units and measurements matter?

IDEAS ORGANIZATION VOICE WORD CHOICE SENTENCE FLUENCY CONVENTIONS

Try giving students scrambled historic quotes and challenging them to rewrite the quotes using the appropriate conventions.

The Six Traits Across the Curriculum: A Writer’s RoadmapDid you know? The Common Core State Standards ask EVERY teacher to play a role in students’ writing development—in Literature, Math, Science and Social Studies.

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Want more help writing across the curriculum using the six traits? Check out Strategies for Writers, a new curriculum from Zaner-Bloser!