Celebrating Writing for Learning in All

Subjects: How to Integrate More Writing into Your

Classroom

L. Lennie Irvin San Antonio College

Entry Slip Write for two minutes

What motivation related to your teaching brought you to this Open Institute?

SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

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Today’s Presenter L. Lennie Irvin

• Community College English teacher since 1989

• Assistant Professor of English at San Antonio College where I’ve been since 1994

• Current PhD Candidate in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University, with an emphasis in Comp/Rhet

• Co-Director, San Antonio Writing Project (Summer Institute 2004)

• Special interests: writing pedagogy, rhetoric, computers and writing, the role of reflection in the activity of writing, write to learn

3SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Write-to-Learn

Learning is the quintessential human activity. Language is the most powerful learning tool we have. All students have a right to discover--or, perhaps, rediscover--the joys of learning and we should all recognize that writing-to-learn is one of the best means of helping them to do so.

-John Mayher, et. al.

  It’s more difficult to convince teachers that writing is a learning

process than it is to convince them that talk is, because so often teachers use writing as a way of testing. They use it to find out what students already know, rather than as a way of encouraging them to find out. The process of making the material their own--the process of writing--is demonstrably a process of learning.

-James Britton

SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Peter Elbow’s Map of Writing in Terms of

Audience and Response

5SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Beliefs Discouraging the Use of Writing

Writing will require instructors to sacrifice valuable content instruction for writing instruction.

Instructors who teach with writing must have expertise in the specifics of grammar and usage.

Giving writing assignments will add considerably to grading time (all writing must be graded and marked for correctness).

6SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Write-to-Learn Principles According to cognitive research, people learn best when they:

1) Make subject matter personal and place it in the context of their lives.

2) Connect new information with old, placing it in the context of what they already know.

3) Articulate it, restating new information in their own words.

The sort of writing that most facilitates learning is informal, relatively unstructured, and has an emphasis more on what is said (the new ideas and concepts being struggled with) than how it is said (correct spelling, grammar and usage). These things are important, but to what extent depends on the purpose of the writing. When students are writing to learn, their attention should be on ideas more than on "correctness."  If they later seek to convey this information to others, then correctness becomes important.

7SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Effective Write-to-Learn Assignments…

Are short (3-15 minutes)

Ask students to write a word, a sentence, question, or a paragraph or two (though it could be more)

Are integrated (explicitly) into class content, objectives, and activity, and, are optimally, utilized in subsequent writing projects

Elicit multiple responses

Where appropriate, receive some content-focused (versus mechanics-focused) response

Aren't formally graded, but count toward a portion of the grade

8SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Write-to-Learn Activities (a selected list)

Freewriting

Entry Slip/Exit Slips

Sentence/Passage Springboard

Writing Definitions

Student-Formulated Questions

Short Summary

Anticipatory Writing

Stop and Writes

Dialectical/Double Entry Notebook

Journals/Learning Logs/Thinkbooks

Process Journal/ Discussion Board

Group Writing9SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on

Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Write-to-Learn Example: Process Journals Writing about writing(writing about

learning)--the goal of these journals is to get them writing about their writing/learning experience

It is one kind of journal writing in the class--mixed with freewriting journals

Weekly--turned in each week

Purpose—abstract conceptualization, constructed learning--although they are grounded in specific experience, their goal is to help formulate larger understandings (not specific problem-solving for specific writing contexts)

10SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Features of Process Journals Length

--I push for more extended length. 250 words minimum.

Evaluation--graded only on addressing the topic and meeting the minimum length requirement

Make them Public--sharing these reflections opens the possibility for students to learn from each other (reflecting upon reflections)

Response--creating a space for students to react and respond to each others’ ideas and create new realizations and connections

11SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Example Process Journal Prompts

Two Process Journals on Invention: Getting started on a writing project is hard. What do you do to

prepare to write? What sorts of “invention” activities seem to work for you? Did you find the invention exercise I prepared for you helpful? How? Why? Look again at the section in our handbook on prewriting. Do you find it easier to "just write" and then plot out your ideas? Or does it work best for you to plot out a game plan (like an outline) which you use to write from? Share some of the things you do as you get ready to write.

Read Trimble’s chapter 2 called “Getting Launched,” and pick one quote from that chapter to include in this journal. Why did you pick this quote? You have just finished (or are about to finish) our first essay. Talk about your own “getting launched” process for this essay. What did you do to get started with writing your essay? How did it compare to Trimble’s discussion about getting launched? What can you take from this experience and perhaps apply to another situation where you have to start a writing assignment?

12SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Writing our own Process Journals

Topic:

Our shared learning experience here is that we are all striving to be better teachers. Write about one concern or issue you are currently facing in your teaching that has emerged recently.

Describe what this issue/concern is. Then explore its causes and consequences.

Lastly, write what you intend or hope to do as you continue to deal with this issue/concern. What will improve the situation?

SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Examples of Process Journals

Sharing

Student Examples

SAWP 2010 Randolph ISD Open Institute on Writing Across the Curriculum | Lennie Irvin

Exit Slip

Write for 2-4 minutes…

How might you use process journals or other write-to-learn activities in your classroom?

15SAWP 2010 Feb. Teacher Conference Frances Crawford and Lennie Irvin