Writing-to-Learn
VI. Using the writing-to-learn approach
According to Graham & Perin (2007), writing-to-learn activities have been shown to have a small but consistent positive effect on students’ learning of content material. Writing-to-learn activities do not involve explicit instruction in writing skills, although teachers must model the activities so that students do them well enough to learn. Writing is used as a method to increase students’ ability to deepen and expand their learning.
According to Brewster & Klump (2004), the related “writing across the curriculum” approach is “more a commitment to a set of core principles than to a rigid set of practices,” and implementation can vary widely across classrooms and schools. They quote Robert Bangert-Drowns, author of a meta-analysis on writing to learn, on three key elements of writing across the curriculum: “to increase the frequency of student writing, to integrate and elaborate writing strategies throughout the different content areas, and to promote the instrumental use of writing as a tool for other academic ends (personal communication, 2004, p. 7 of Brewster & Klump).
Classroom examples of the writing-to-learn approach:
1. Entrance/exit slips (multiple grades)
Students complete entrance/exit slips at the beginning or end of class. Entrance slips are one- or two-minute assignments in which student list their background knowledge or questions they have about a topic. The teacher may read these anonymously at the start of class. Exit slips are completed at the end of a lesson. Students summarize what they learned or reflect on strategies they used to learn new material. These strategies can give teachers a quick assessment of what students know about a topic. They can also help students become more reflective about their own learning.
2. Written conversations (multiple grades)
With this strategy, teachers ask students to respond for about five minutes to a simple question about a topic that will be discussed in class that day. This allows students to activate their background knowledge. Teachers can have students share their writing with a partner and then write a collaborative response to the question. This strategy also helps students learn about prewriting.
3. Self assessments (multiple grades)
Students write two- to three-minute assessments of their work on an assignment or project. The teacher might ask them: to identify the most challenging part of the assignment and describe why it was difficult; to describe with which part of the assignment students are most satisfied and why; or what the project shows the student has learned.
4. Journals and learning logs (multiple grades)
Students write about subject-area content in journals and learning logs. In journals they can summarize new information, write about what they do not yet understand, and come up with new questions. Mathematics and science teachers often have students write out their problem-solving process in learning logs. Both journals and learning logs can be done individually or collaboratively.
Scrapbooks are learning logs that include pictures, cut-out excerpts from other people’s writing, teacher/peer feedback, or other writing artifact. They can serve as visual and written portfolio that students can reflect upon to develop their metacognitive skills.
5. Double entry journals (multiple grades)
Students use this type of learning log to better understand subject-area text. ON the left-hand side of the page students write down important passages from the text. On the right-hand side of the page, they explain the passage’s significance or connect it to other readings, experience, or real-world applications.
6. Blogs, chats, and online discussion forums (multiple grades)
If safety and appropriateness can be assured, Web-based learning platforms allow students to engage in discussion, review, etc., about their content area coursework.
7. Pen pals (multiple grades)
Now used in secondary as well as elementary settings, students can write letters or emails with other students in other classes or countries. Subject-area teachers can provide topics or questions as the basis for authentic student-to-student communications.
8. Teaching students how to summarize texts (multiple grades)
Graham & Perin (2007) found that teaching students how to summarize text had a strong positive effect on their ability to write good summaries. Steven Graham, one of the co-authors of Writing Next (Graham & Perin, 2007), presented six rules of summarization that instructors can teach students:
1. Delete unnecessary material
2. Delete redundant material
3. Compose a word to replace a list of items
4. Compose a word to replace individual parts of an action
5. Select a topic sentence
6. Invent a topic sentence if need be
See also: Frey, N., Fisher, D., & Hernandez, T. (2003). “What’s the Gist?” Summary writing for struggling adolescent writers. Voices from the Middle, 11(2), 43-49.
9. Generating Interactions between Schemata and Text (GIST) (middle and high school)
To enhance student comprehension and guide students in writing summaries that contribute to increased content learning, this activity should be done initially with a group of students practicing under teacher guidance. To help students with longer passages, the teacher might want to work through a paragraph sentence by sentence. Students read the sentence with the goal of retelling it in their own words.
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