Writing across curriculum?

[harnita24]

How exactly do you do this? Do you have a specific writing book that you get directions and instruction from?

[Slache]

The Writer's Jungle talks about it which you can get at HSBC for $40.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I'd suggest listening to SWB's lecture on middle grade writing:

 

http://peacehillpress.com/audiobooks-lectures/a-plan-for-teaching-writing-focus-on-the-middle-grades-mp3-download/

 

She leads you through a 4-year plan for teaching writing across the curriculum.  The Well-Trained Mind book also discusses this, but listening to the audiobook is the most direct route.

 

Another new favorite book of mine is Engaging Ideas - it's directed at college professors, but I have found many, many gems in it to help design a writing across the curriculum program.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Engaging-Ideas-Professors-Integrating-Classroom/dp/0470532904/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405613904&sr=8-1&keywords=engaging+ideas

[Alte Veste Academy]

You can take whatever curriculum you are using and transfer the lessons to wider content. WWE (hardcover guide for grades 1-4) and IEW TWSS are tailor made for this. I have heard that Classical Writing is also meant to be used this way (Homer and after, I think). I have turned WWS around and used it with our own content. For the past few years we have also done a writing workshop, and I've pulled the veritable kitchen sink of writing lessons into that, paired with whatever content the kids want to write about. I agree that The Writer's Jungle, teaches this as well, but it is not so sequential as the others. 

 

Also, just as a warning and to empower you to make things work for your own family... I've seen some criticism of writing across the curriculum from some people who assume this means that you are writing in every single subject every single day, almost turning that subject into writing. That is not at all how we do it. One week we might be writing about science, the next we might write about history, the next we might write about current events... But at the same time, we are doing the real work of those subjects (for example, reading history, doing map work, constructing our timeline, doing projects, looking at period art, listening to period music, etc.). We're not turning every subject into writing; we're just writing about ______ that week for writing.

 

I have also seen people comment that writing about a beloved subject has caused their kid to stop liking that subject. In that case, I wouldn't personally require it (at least until upper middle school, maybe). It's easier here, I admit, because my kids all like to write. At any rate, writing skills transfer well between subjects.

 

Anyway, the truth is that you can write across the curriculum however you like. 

[harnita24]

You can take whatever curriculum you are using and transfer the lessons to wider content. WWE (hardcover guide for grades 1-4) and IEW TWSS are tailor made for this. I have heard that Classical Writing is also meant to be used this way (Homer and after, I think). I have turned WWS around and used it with our own content. For the past few years we have also done a writing workshop, and I've pulled the veritable kitchen sink of writing lessons into that, paired with whatever content the kids want to write about. I agree that The Writer's Jungle, teaches this as well, but it is not so sequential as the others.

 

Also, just as a warning and to empower you to make things work for your own family... I've seen some criticism of writing across the curriculum from some people who assume this means that you are writing in every single subject every single day, almost turning that subject into writing. That is not at all how we do it. One week we might be writing about science, the next we might write about history, the next we might write about current events... But at the same time, we are doing the real work of those subjects (for example, reading history, doing map work, constructing our timeline, doing projects, looking at period art, listening to period music, etc.). We're not turning every subject into writing; we're just writing about ______ that week for writing.

 

I have also seen people comment that writing about a beloved subject has caused their kid to stop liking that subject. In that case, I wouldn't personally require it (at least until upper middle school, maybe). It's easier here, I admit, because my kids all like to write. At any rate, writing skills transfer well between subjects.

 

Anyway, the truth is that you can write across the curriculum however you like.

I was thinking about doing that with WWS. Can you tell me more about how you did that? I haven't even looked at WWS yet...

[Chrysalis Academy]

I agree wholeheartedly with AVA.  I will just add that a benefit of writing across the curriculum is that your writing tasks do double duty - they allow you to practice writing, but they also help you to learn and engage with the content areas that you are studying.  For some kids, this is a huge plus.  However, I will say that this works best once the basic basics of writing skills - spelling, grammar, sentences, paragraphs - are solid.  Just as an example, here are some of the kinds of writing tasks we will do across the curriculum, in our content areas:

 

Writing Tasks for Critical Thinking (Science, History, Literature)

1.       Link course concept to personal experience or prior knowledge: how is this similar to something you already know?

2.       Explain concept to a new learner (of different levels)

3.       Summary or Abstract of text or lecture

a.       200-250 word summary

b.      One sentence summaries

c.       25-word precis

d.      Summarize TC lectures; outline plus rewrite from outline

4.       Support or attack a given thesis

5.       Template Assignments: Provide a slot for the thesis along with an organizational frame students have to flesh out

6.       Answer a question or problem (audience defined as part of question)

7.       Data Analysis – given a set of data, write an argument or analysis based on the data

8.       Role-playing “What If†assignment – take a certain perspective or respond to a hypothetical situation

9.       Dialogues or Argumentative scripts – role-play opposing views on a controversial issue

10.   Case studies or simulations – real or realistic stories or thought-provoking issue questions where there is no obvious right answer, student must take a position or propose a solution

 

And here are some of the writing tasks we will be doing as we interact with our texts in the content areas:

 

Write-to-Learn Text-based Tasks (Science, History, Literature

1.       Marginal Notes – encourage note-taking in margins or on a notebook rather than highlighting; teach students to carry on a dialogue with the author/text

2.       Reading Logs – write about reading, but the writing task is open-ended.  It can be summaries, connections to personal experiences, arguments, imitations, analysis, evaluation, or personal response.

a.       What does this text mean to me?

b.      What effect does this text have on my values, beliefs, or way of looking at the world?

3.       Exploratory responses to critical thinking questions

4.       Summarize the reading (150-250 words)

5.       Summary/Response task: reader first summarizes the main point, then responds to it

6.       Imagined interview with the author – pose questions to the author and imagine how the author would respond

7.       Graphic organizer – represent text’s main ideas visually

8.       Translate a difficult text or passage into your own words

[Chrysalis Academy]

I was thinking about doing that with WWS. Can you tell me more about how you did that? I haven't even looked at WWS yet...

 

You can substitute your own content for the content in the lessons, but still go through all the same steps/procedures.  It's a little trickier with WWS1, because in that book the student is provided with notes with which to write, so either you have to provide them notes, or you have to have them take their own notes from their own reading (which is the approach I would take).  It gets easier in WWS2, where it was pretty straightforward to substitute content.  So for example, my dd wrote a biographical sketch of Sacagawea instead of Daniel Boone, and she compared and contrasted Trixie Belden vs. Nancy Drew, rather than beavers and platypuses (i?)

[Alte Veste Academy]

I was thinking about doing that with WWS. Can you tell me more about how you did that? I haven't even looked at WWS yet...

 

I am about to run out, but essentially I went through WWS and took note of the bottom line for each assignment (what specific skills are being developed here?) and then applied those skills to our resources instead of using the selections in the book. But truthfully I'm probably not the best person to address this if you intend to use WWS as your primary writing spine, because (1) I didn't use it all, and (2) I have a tendency to Frankenstein almost everything I use. :tongue_smilie: 

[Alte Veste Academy]

You can substitute your own content for the content in the lessons, but still go through all the same steps/procedures.  It's a little trickier with WWS1, because in that book the student is provided with notes with which to write, so either you have to provide them notes, or you have to have them take their own notes from their own reading (which is the approach I would take).  It gets easier in WWS2, where it was pretty straightforward to substitute content.  So for example, my dd wrote a biographical sketch of Sacagawea instead of Daniel Boone, and she compared and contrasted Trixie Belden vs. Nancy Drew, rather than beavers and platypuses (i?)

 

Yeah, and I didn't like that, not even a little bit. It was supposed to make things easier, but it just made it harder here. Again though, as I've said in other threads, DS11 is very whole to parts, and SWB has said that WWS was written more for the parts to whole learner. I sat down with DS and taught him the skill of taking his own notes. We had been building up to this though, with WWE in the early years and IEW KWO's.

 

OP, if I have one helpful thing to say about teaching writing, it is that writing with your kid, right alongside him, yields faster progress than any one program. 

[Chrysalis Academy]

There is a whole thread on this board, started by lewelma, about how people tweaked WWS.  I'm with Kristina, I didn't end up continuing with WWS although we did most of 1 and a bit of 2.

 

Here's the thread:

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/490567-here-is-how-i-am-teaching-the-material-in-wws1-3-what-are-you-doing/?hl=%2Badapting+%2Bwws&do=findComment&comment=5241620

[Pen]

following this...

[Roadrunner]

Rose, how do you do data analysis papers? Do you actually teach statistics and do your own study (regression models...) and then write based on that? This is the type of writing I did in grad school, so I think it's wonderful to introduce it in middle school. Just wondering if you found some resources for logic stage kids for it. I haven't seen anything like that.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Well, luckily there is some of this built in to the Big History project - students are presented with a graph or data table and they have to write an interpretation.  We're just now doing statistics, so at this point I'm only asking for interpretations of graphical representations that are pretty straightforward.  I'm keeping an eye out for good graphs in magazines, etc. and I'll ask her to interpret and explain what the graph is showing.  That kind of thing, very basic so far.  We'll do more of this later in science classes, obviously.  

 

At some point I want us to do statistical analysis of data we actually collect and write up a research paper, but we haven't done that yet.

[Colleen in NS]

I was thinking about doing that with WWS. Can you tell me more about how you did that? I haven't even looked at WWS yet...

 

We are partway through WWS 3 (beta).  I've loved what my kids have learned through this series. 

 

Basically, you create an assignment from your student's history, science, or literature reading.  If you want them to write something in science, you can start off by handing them some library books they've read on science topics. Then you can tell them to "write a (pick a WWS topoi)" about this topic.  It should be xx words long..." and give them some other guidelines.  This will get easier for you to do as you get familiar with WWS.

[angela in ohio]

We do all of our writing across the curriculum. I can tell you how I manage it...

 

I use IEW (specifically the TWSS) in the early years and then various college writing handbooks in high school. I create a list of the skills and types of writing I want to cover each year. Then I create a grid of the weeks of the year down the left and all of our subjects across the top (except math.) I pencil in what the specific skills and topics will be each week for each. I make a column on the right side to put writing assignments.

 

I start by putting down any definite writing assignments: they are finishing a novel, so I know I want them to write something about it, for example, or for high school, they are writing a science research paper at the end of the semester. Then I fill in remaining writing assignments by covering a mix of topics from each subjects that will work.

 

I've written two or three long posts about how I do this for IEW specifically (not sure how to find those,) and I can provide more help for that in particular. But this is the general method I use each year. :)

[dori123]

Thanks especially to Chrysalis Academy for that wonderful summary of write-to-learn ideas. I think I love you. *   : )

[TKDmom]

Thanks especially to Chrysalis Academy for that wonderful summary of write-to-learn ideas. I think I love you. * : )

Thanks for resurrecting this thread! I didn't see it the first time through. And I'm ready to start writing across the curriculum. Writing programs don't seem to work for me.