As many of the states across the country have conformed to
the Common Core State Standards, it has become evident through these new standards
that students need to be writing. These writings include but are not limited to
opinion, argument, informational, and narrative. While this may seem like an
easy task, it is actually one that is quite difficult. Many teachers simply
assign a writing prompt and expect students to produce quality pieces. However,
as educators we need to do more. Simply assigning a prompt and setting high
expectations will not manifest successful writers. In addition, students
develop a hate for writing rather than a love! So what needs to be done?
Teachers need to be sure to engage students in a motivating way. Also, they
must not utilize solid writing blocks and write across all disciplines.
According to Fisher and Frey, teachers must pay close
attention and focus on writing as a performance assessment tool and check for
student understanding through their writing not just within literacy but across
all disciplines (2013). Fisher and Frey focus on three strategies which
teachers can use to enable student writing across the school day. These three strategies
are power writing, shared writing and writing from sources.
“Power writing is a method for building writing fluency through brief, timed writing events.”
(Fisher & Frey, pg. 97, 2013)
By utilizing power writing students are able to put their ideas down on paper quickly and with accuracy. This can take place within all content areas and can be integrated daily as a routine. This will ensure students are given adequate practice with writing and aren’t required to write essays that they feel are daunting. As the routine is established, students get more comfortable and their writing fluency improves drastically.
“Shared writing is a term that is used to describe collaborative experiences between teacher and students.”
(Fisher & Frey, pg. 98, 2013)
By taking part in shared writing, students are discussing with the
teacher what eventually will be put on paper by the teacher. This is to show
students that things in print can carry a specific message. Interactive writing
is similar, although the student is the writer.
“Writing from sources in an important aspect of content area
learning.”
(Fisher & Frey, pg. 99, 2013)
Writing to inform and explain is a
great opportunity to produce writing in content areas such as social studies
and science. These writings can be research based, with focused questions and
maintain understanding of a given topic. Students can also be given the
opportunity to write informative/explanatory pieces in which they convey ideas
through their writing. Students can be given engaging opportunities to research
and collect evidence to fulfill the requirements for such reading. Technology
plays a huge factor in the success as our students are becoming more
technologically savvy.
According to Ramos, Reading
to Learn approach is a genre-based framework for helping culturally and
linguistically diverse learners develop increased control over the academic
language resources needed to successfully read and write in school (pg. 656,
2014). This approach will ultimately strengthen the student’s capability of
writing persuasive essays that are deemed appropriate. An example of a prompt
in which students can utilize such approach when dealing with US. History is
the following:
Students will take part in the five stages by doing the
following:
·
Building Field Stage – Students will interact in
lessons surrounding the Constitution.
·
Preparing to Read Stage – Students will begin
formulating ideas using what they have previously learned and decide upon the
purpose of their persuasive essay.
·
Detailed Reading Stage – Students will use
organizers to construct their arguments.
·
Joint Construction Stage – Students will begin
writing their pieces with teacher support.
·
Individual Construction Stage – Students will
work on their persuasive essays independently utilizing all previously taught strategies
within the Reading to Learn approach.
References
Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2013). A Range of Writing Across the Content Areas. Reading Teacher, 67(2), 96-101.
Ramos, K. (2014). Teaching Adolescent ELs to Write Academic-Style Persuasive Essays. Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 57(8), 655-665.
I totally agree with your statement that many teachers simply assign assignments and expect students to produce quality work. Teachers would never assign math problems without going over the mathematical concept and doing lots of practice in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteAmanda,
ReplyDeleteI very much agree that as educators, we cannot simply assign a writing prompt and expect students to complete it. Many students, even those in high school, still need direct and explicit writing instruction. Thus, all content area teachers are responsible for this large task. I also love the concept of power writing, which can easily be implemented as a daily routine across all content areas. It gets students comfortable with writing and allows them to see a visible goal that they can try to surpass. Further, your constitutional amendment prompt was a wonderful example of how writing can be used in a secondary Social Studies classroom. I believe that teachers must include more interesting types of writing, like this prompt, into the classroom. This will allow students to be more engaged in writing and develop a love for it.