Two Strategies for Writing Integration: Write to Communicate

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Two Strategies for Writing Integration Write
to Communicate Write to Learn

• David Bowen, English
• david.bowen_at_colostate.edu

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CSU Writing Resources

• Writing Across the Curriculum
• http//wac.colostate.edu/intro
• The Writing Center (located in Eddy 6)
• http//writing.colostate.edu/wcenter
• Writing_at_CSU
• http//writing.colostate.edu
• g(uaranteed)t(ransfer)Pathways
• http//writing.colostate.edu/gtPathways

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Session Plan

• Why Writing?
• Two threadsWTC WTL
• WTCDesign and Sequence
• WTLWhy its useful, Design strategies
• WTL Challengesmediums, logistics, objections
• Final Thoughts and Questions

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Write to Learn

• Describe how writing has been for you a valuable
  tool while performing any or all of the following
  roles
• Teacher
• Student
• Professional
• Citizen
• Human being

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Why Writing?

• For Teachers
• Writing assignments, both formal and informal,
  help teachers gauge student progress.
• Reflective and evaluative writing provide
  teachers with a sense of the students subjective
  experience of the course.

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Why Writing?

• For Students
• Writingand its twin, Speakingis an
  indispensible mode of communication across
  disciplines and throughout the broader workplace.
• Writing assignments are uniquely suited to help
  students discover, explore, and retain new ideas.

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Why Writing?

• I know what I think,
• but I dont know how to say it.
• Writing is linear as students move from left to
  right and top to bottom, writing forces them to
  choose, qualify, clarify, organize, justify, and
  ultimately discover exactly what they think.
• Writing practice is thinking practice.

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Why Writing?

• Authentic thinkingtakes place only in
  communication. Paolo Freire
• Writing acts such as evaluating, analyzing, and
  synthesizing make students active subjects in the
  learning process, as opposed to passive objects.
• Writing acts such as reflecting and responding
  help students contextualize and relate to new
  concepts.

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Two Threads of Writing Integration

• Write to Communicate (WTC) papers, written
  projects, hard copy or electronic, performative
  writing, professional genres, multigenre
  portfolios, individual papers, portfolio
  compilations graded with teacher response
• Write to Learn (WTL) in class or online forums,
  exploratory writing, reflective writing, critical
  thinking and engagement, preparatory writing,
  intervention writing, comprehension probes,
  classroom assessment minimal grading with
  reader response

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WTC Product as Learning Process

• Sequence major writing assignments using multiple
  minor writing assignments of graduated difficulty
• Breaking major writing tasks into smaller units
  makes the work both more manageable for students
  and more valuable to their learning

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Designing and Teaching the WTC Assignment Cycle

• Course Objectives
• Learning Priorities / Hierarchy
• Multiple Writing Tasks (inside or outside class)
• Evaluation Criteria
• Feedback/Response/Comments (from peers or
  teacher)
• Revision Priorities or Grade
• Revised Paper or New Paper

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Blooms Taxonomy

• Knowledge Remembering information
• Comprehension Summarizing information
• Application Using information in new contexts
  to solve problems
• Analysis Identifying distinct parts and
  describing relationship between them
• Synthesis Combining previously learned skills
  and information to generate new, unique whole
• Evaluation Generating and applying criteria in
  order to produce a value judgment

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Example WTC Cycle

• QuizStudents remember ideas, developing a
  critical and disciplinary vocabulary (Knowledge)
• SummaryStudents describe ideas in their own
  words, creating a building block for more
  sophisticated writing assignments (Comprehension)
  
• ResponseStudents practice applying critical
  vocab to new contexts, interpreting relationships
  between and implications of new ideas
  (Application, Analysis)
• ArgumentStudents locate distinct interpretations
  of information (research) and combine these to
  form their own unique interpretation (Synthesis)
• Peer ReviewStudents use stated assignment
  criteria to offer feedback to their peers
  (Evaluation)

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From the Writing_at_CSU website http//writing.colos
tate.edu/guides/teaching/wassign/pop2f.cfmSample
assignment AG ECON 4XX

• OVERVIEW Good analytical writing involves a
  process of rereading and rewriting, and it is
  common to do a half dozen or more drafts. Because
  our understanding of the material will grow
  throughout the semester, we will complete the
  assignment in four stages. I will read the drafts
  produced in each stage and provide comments to
  aid in your final revision of the completed
  product. It will be worth one-half of your
  semester grade.
• PURPOSE This project will analyze the peoples
  and policies related to population, food, and the
  environment of your chosen country, exploring
  each of these subsets and highlighting the
  interrelations among them. Your research and
  final paper should address the following
  questions.
• Population - Explain the dynamic nature of
  population change in your country or region and
  the forces underlying the changes. Better papers
  will go beyond description and analyze the
  situation at hand structure of growth,
  population momentum, rural/urban migration, age
  structure of population, etc. DUE WEEK 4.
• Food - What is the nature of food consumption
  in your country or region? Is the average daily
  consumption below recommended levels? What is the
  income elasticity of demand? Use Engel's law to
  discuss this behavior. Is production able to stay
  abreast with demand given these trends? What is
  the nature of agricultural production
  traditional agriculture or green revolution
  technology? Is the trend in food production

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Sample assignment AG ECON 4XX(Cont.)

• Food (cont.) towards self-sufficiency? If not,
  can comparative advantage explain this? DUE WEEK
  8.
• Environment - Show the environmental impact of
  agricultural production techniques as well as any
  direct impacts from population changes. Use the
  concepts of technological externalities,
  assimilative capacity, property rights, etc. to
  explain the nature of this situation in your
  country or region. What other environmental
  problems are evident? Discuss the problems and
  methods for economically measuring environmental
  degradation. DUE WEEK 12.
• Final Draft - The final draft of the project
  should consider the economic situation of
  agriculture in your specified country or region
  from the three perspectives outlined above. Key
  to such an analysis are the interrelationships of
  the three perspectives. How does each factor
  contribute to an overall analysis of the
  successes and problems in agricultural policy and
  production of your chosen country or region? The
  paper may conclude with recommendations, but, at
  the very least, it should provide a clear summary
  statement about the challenges facing your
  country or region. DUE WEEK15.

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Write-to-Learn

• Strategies and ideas
• to get your students engaged

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Why Write to Learn (WTL)?

• WTL can engage learners just as the i-clicker
  does. Writing may do it better.
• WTL can yield essential classroom assessment
  information.
• WTL can get students started on larger projects
  and offer opportunities to redirect these
  projects throughout.
• WTL can teach students that their ongoing
  learning matters, not just the end products of
  their learning.

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WTLmedia logistics

• Hard copy in-class or online forum out of class
• Simple point system for participationcheck,
  check plus, check minus (3, 4, or 5 points),
  etc.culminates in 5 or 10 of semester grade
• Collect, read quickly, provide whole-class
  response. Record participation scores
  immediately. Do not reward minimal efforts. Dock
  for absence. Send signal that engagement and
  participation matter.
• John Bean compares grading daily writing to
  grading scales that a new pianist practices daily
  before the weekly lesson. Daily work doesnt
  receive the same scrutiny as the weekly
  performance, but does the daily practice matter?
  You bet!

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Use WTL to Encourage Document a Recursive
Writing Process

• Assignment early stages
• List three possible research topics posed as
  inquiry questions
• Choose one question to exchange with a partner
  and spend the next three minutes answering his or
  hers discuss before sharing with the class
• Assignment mid-stages
• Describe the most important questions your
  research seeks to answer and explain how your
  research so far has addressed them and generated
  new questions. This can lead students toward an
  interpretive problem-thesis structure rather than
  descriptive and then, and then writing
• Two Sentences Question and ThesisWrite a
  one-sentence question that summarizes the problem
  your paper addresses and a one-sentence thesis
  statement that summarizes your answer to the
  question.
• Write an abstract of at least 250 words that
  distinguishes between the main ideas and
  supporting ideas of your argument. A WTL like
  this clarifies thinking and reveals
  organizational problems that prompt revision.
• Individual 15-minute conferencesrequired or
  voluntary based on time, needs, goals, etc.
• Assignment final stages
• Peer reviewin-class or take-home workshop.
  Feedback should reflect the evaluation criteria,
  and should be directed by specific questions or
  prompts.
• Consider assigning a postscript that asks
  students to reflect on the different stages of
  their writing process, or describe their
  application of concepts from previous assignments.

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Use WTL to Motivate and Direct Classroom
Discussion Activities

• Write at the start of class to review previous
  material or launch new concepts
• Write to ramp-up a group activity or pair work
• Write when discussion lags or students seem
  confused
• Write at the end of class to sum up
• Record simply as participation as check,
  check-minus or check-plus. Vary your collection
  methods
• Student-generated questions for discussion
• Article main ideas
• Reading logs and double-entry journals
• Concept maps for exam prep or general review

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Designing WTLs that Contribute to Learning

• Assign writing prompts that help students to link
  course concepts to their personal experiences or
  prior knowledge.
• Ask students to explain difficult course material
  to a new learner.
• Ask students to generate an imaginary dialogue
  that questions a hypothetical expert about
  difficult course material.
• Ask students to describe the relationship between
  important terms.
• Give students raw data (such as lists, graphs, or
  tables) and ask them to summarize, analyze, or
  evaluate it.
• Give students a seed sentence and ask them to
  use it to complete a critical response or
  argument by growing the seed sentence into a
  bigger idea using generalizations and supporting
  details.
• Have students role-play unfamiliar points of
  view, playing devils advocate or their side
  (vs. my side) in a brief argument.
• Select an assigned, important article and ask
  students to write a summary or abstract.
• Other ideas?

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The Double-Entry Journal

• A double-entry journal takes the form of two
  vertical columns of text, one of which comments
  on the other. Your journal will place critical
  reading alongside close reading. In the lefthand
  column, type the main ideas of the text. When
  youre through, print this column of ideas and
  read them over, recording your own questions and
  reactions in the righthand column with a pen or
  pencil. These notes are often very useful for
  larger projects youll do later.
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• This process is a slow-motion version of what
  your mind does all the time as it interacts with
  itself in a dialectic fashion, a word derived
  from the Greek for art of debate. Ann Berthoff
  writes in The Making of Meaning The reason for
  the double-entry format is that it provides a way
  for the student to conduct that continuing audit
  of meaning that is at the heart of learning to
  read and write critically. By writing about your
  writing, youll be thinking about your thinking,
  and as a result youll become a stronger, more
  deliberate writer and thinker.

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Might every class begin with the posing of a
problem? Might every class end with one?
What discipline-specific questions might
your students discover, explore, and answer via
writing? Consider concluding your classes
with a WTL for course assessment and
development.
FINAL THOUGHTS