4 Easy to Implement Techniques for Writing Across the Curriculum
If you are a Social Studies or Science teacher who has been asked to incorporate more writing instruction into your classroom, this post is for you! I have had many teachers in your content area come to me with much concern over being asked to support their students with writing. I am here to tell you that 1- YOU CAN DO IT! 2- It’s not as difficult as you think!
Read on to find four steps for enhancing implementation of writing in your content-area classroom.
Step 1: Building Relationships for Better Writing
One key factor in effective writing instruction (and every other aspect of learning, really) is the relationship you have with your students. One effective way to do so in writing is to do some writing yourself. I know what you are thinking, I do. First, you are thinking that you aren’t a writer. Second, you are thinking you don’t have time. However, when you connect with your students as writers, even if you don't feel confident about your writing skills, it helps build a supportive environment. Imagine how validated and comforted your students will feel if you tell them you don’t feel like a strong writer, or that you struggle with planning or revising. You don’t have to write all the time! Simply take a few moments during your planning or when you have some tv time at home to do some of the work you are asking your students to do. Share your writing process with them, discuss the challenges you have and the strategies you have used, and they will not only feel seen and understood, but this vulnerability and connection can motivate students to participate more willingly. AND, bonus, doing some writing yourself will help you to identify teaching points and areas of support to provide your students as writers.
Step 2: Small Steps to Incorporate Writing
If your current curriculum is void of writing, start small. Incorporate writing through activities such as varied methods for notetaking, summarizing of key ideas within textbook chapters or articles read, and/or student-written questions for clarification of lessons or completed reading. Encourage students to write brief responses to what they've read, or to put down their thoughts and questions on post-it notes. Students can also work in pairs to complete these initial tasks, or to answer questions they pose to one another. These taks not only help students practice writing but also enhance their comprehension of the subject matter.
Another small step for incorporating writing is to connect in-class textbook reading as well as real-world reading related to your subject matter to writing. Let’s say a Social Studies class is working in a unit on the Cuban Missile Crisis and is reading an old newspaper article. Although the goal may be to understand an event written about in the article, this time can also be used to analyze the text with a writer’s eye, looking at the structure and journalistic style of the article itself. This can help prepare students for any writing task you may include in your curriculum.
Step 3: Establishing a Baseline
Just as a coach needs to assess their players in order to know how to coach them, we must assess our writers as well. Before starting any writing project, have your writers complete a baseline writing piece to assess their skills. If they will be working on a research paper, you may have them write a shorter informational piece (any topic can be used) where you will be able to identify their strengths in the skills you are looking for (citations, paraphrasing, number of facts, etc). This will ensure you will not be asking them to complete a piece that is out of their range of abilities and provide insight as to where they need the most support throughout the process.
Step 4: Use Modeled Writing
Modeled writing is a powerful instructional technique that is simply writing in front of your students while “thinking aloud” to explain your process. This can be used to model some of the smaller writing tasks mentioned in Step 2 as well as longer tasks such as compare and contrast essays or research papers. (No, you would not model a complete paper!)
Quite often when students are given a writing assignment, they are given a rubric, possibly an example piece, and then just asked to begin. Modeled writing provides the instructional piece needed to demonstrate the process and skills students need to know.
Writing is an extremely important and effective aspect of learning and should be included in every subject. I hope these steps will be helpful for making writing a larger part of your teaching.
