Learning the Write Way - Written By: Deidra M. Gammill

- Write a short summary of your piece, featuring the 'big idea' or 'take-home message' you gained from reading it (about 100-200 words)

Writing connects reading and comprehension no matter the length of their writing – they make connections leading to better understanding and stronger skills. “Writing to learn” is a process or skill that uses language to get the students thinking across. This is similar to the thinking, speaking, and learning process. If students learn through writing they gain many other skills such as reading – this improves test scores. For example, my third grade class is required to take the ISAT test this year and it requires the students to read long passages. If they already know how to write they will have a much easier time reading the passages fluently and will be able to comprehend the story. Students also learn through “writing to learn” questioning strategies, using prior knowledge, inferring, and using their imaginations or own ideas which leads to authentic work. Strategies to implement and use the “writing to learn” technique is using KWL charts and reading journals. Students are able to record and see what they already know, what they want to learn, and what they learned – they can monitor their progress along the way. In addition bringing the students’ personal experiences into their writing helps to retain information and to make connections – lessons are then more meaningful and more powerful to the students.

- Discuss whether and how you would use this approach at your grade level, where it could fit within the language arts curriculum in your classroom, and what it offers for enriching writing instruction beyond what you thought about as you completed Task 1 of this module.

I would use the “writing to learn” approach in my third grade classroom. It would fit in with guided reading/ reader’s notebook – which is similar. Students write about their readings for the week in letter form to the teacher (me). It helps them with reading strategies (such as predicting and visualizing). Students are able to write about things that interest them since they are the ones picking out the book. They can ask themselves questions in their writing and answer these questions at a later time in their writing. Also, as stated above this would help as they are taking the ISAT test this year and have a difficult time reading long passages. If they first learn to read long passages that is of interest to them and they have a connection with it because it is their writing they will get better at reading longer passages that are of a different authors work – they may in a sense begin to appreciate the work more.

- Also identify what you think you need to learn to do as a professional in order to use this approach well with your students.

I would need to learn the most and least successful ways to teach this approach and whether or not it is useful to have whole group lessons/small group lessons/ or one-on-one “mini lessons”. I would also need to learn other ways to implement this into the classroom especially with other subjects (math, science, social studies). Finally ways to assess their work that would be beneficial to the students.
- Lastly, how have any of the ideas in this module (writer's workshop, assessment, analysis of student work, jigsaw articles) helped you to think about the types of assessment necessary for informing your unit development? Even if your unit is not focused squarely on writing, what might you need to consider about your students as WRITERS, as you plan for instruction?

This module has shown me the many different types of assessments available to teachers. Some of which I hope to use and implement for my unit lesson(s). I have learned that reading and writing work together to make the students become more successful – they shouldn’t (always) be two different ideas, instead they should work together. As a teacher it could be difficult to use writing as your primary source for instruction however if the students don’t enjoy writing or feel ashamed that they can’t spell. So many students (in my class) feel they can’t write “well” because they can’t spell accurately. As a teacher this should be addressed to the students that it is ok to spell what you hear as long as the students are sounding the words out phonetically. Lastly, making the lessons interactive and enabling the students to make connections with their work is the most important.