Writing in Every Content Area

Over the last few weeks, I’ve found some great resources for supporting writing in the content areas. These may be particularly helpful for those who are very new to doing so and those who are less tech-comfortable, although all can and should be integrated with the use of tech tools, whenever this is possible and appropriate. Interested in learning more? Leave a comment for me here, or if I work in your district, let me know you are interested, and I will stop by!

• The West Virginia Department of Education provides basic explanations and templates for supporting writing in all content areas. Introductorylevel strategies include:
  • Journals
  • Learning Logs
  • RAFT
  • KWL
  • GIST Statements
  • List, Group, Label Vocabulary Activities
  • Using a Variety of Graphic Organizers to Capture Thinking
  • Five Sense Activities (scroll down)

• Writing Fix has become a valuable tool for many ELA teachers, but did you know they provide a great deal of writing instruction support to content area teachers as well?
  • More on RAFT Assignments
  • History Fix
    
  • Science Fix
  • Number Fix

• ELA teachers have also incorporated many of Steve Peha’s writing strategies within their instruction. Recently, Steve added a number of new resources to his site specifically for content area teachers who are beginning to support writing. His comprehensive guides include directions, templates, and samples that you may download for free (see his left sidebar) and use with your students.
  • Learning Patterns is a fantastic manual of strategies and resources ready for classroom use.
  • The Writing Teacher’s Strategy Guide also provides support for teachers of every content area.
  • Learning Across the Curriculum is a ready-to-use tool as well.

• Eager to learn from practicing content area teachers? You might be interested in some of these videos:
  • Integrating Reading and Writing in the Science Classroom
  • Claymation Across the Curriculum
  • One Teacher’s Google Search for Writing in Math

• Those interested in learning more about the 6+1 Traits can find a number of resources here. The second page of that document provides a “clickable” list of web resources as well. In addition:
  • See how the Traits can be translated for use in Math right here.
  • Learn about the influence of Traits-based instruction on performance here.
  • Using rubrics and assessment criteria as tools to enrich instruction and revision helps writers substantially. Read about this here.

• Finally, these sites and resources may also be of use to you or your colleagues as you learn together this year. If I can help you more, please let me know!
  • The Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and English Language Arts provides numerous resources and a rich library of information online for content area teachers. This document includes a wide variety of strategies, templates, and examples of helpful writing strategies.
  • Corbett Harrison’s piece on the integration of writing and art is interesting, and I’ve used his stick-figure strategy to enhance note-taking with success in different content area classrooms.
  • The Bard Institute for Writing and Thinking provides resources for collaborative learning, writing to read, and informal writing here.