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10: Writing
for the World
[Note:
this is a two-week unit]
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 Overview
In this lesson you will look at strategies for teaching and using writing for a variety of purposes:
to learn, to create, and to take care of business. If we want writing to become a part of our
students’ lives outside as well as inside school, we have to show them how to use writing in
meaningful ways. This lesson is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on writing as a
tool for learning in any discipline. The second part focuses on creative writing—poetry, fiction, and
memoir. The third part examines writing to inform and persuade. Your task is to explore strategies
for teaching writing for all three purposes, and to find out how teachers in your school use or don’t
use these strategies. All three sections ask you to read and interview teachers. You may work through
all three lessons at once. Be sure to take notes in your journal in preparation for the discussion
and reflection paper.
This lesson, except for the discussion and reflection, may be done at any time. If you have any
questions prior to the week of the lesson please send me an e-mail, be sure to label them “Lesson 10.”
Part
1: Writing to Learn
AUDIO?
When my son came home from his first day of 10th grade he groaned that his geometry
teacher required a lot of writing. Mom cheered. As much as it is used to communicate,
writing is used to explore, clarify, define, reinforce. Writing has a valuable role in the learning of literature as well as other, non-English related subjects, even math. (One of
my son’s assignments, for example, was to explain in a letter to a friend how to solve a
particular problem.) When we can articulate what we do and do not know, we are better able
to learn. Knowledge and language are inextricably tied.
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Activities To Do Part 1: |
See detail
instructions in the
Activities list below. |
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1. |
Read Z&D Ch. 18 |
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2. |
Interview
your mentor teacher and/or other English teachers
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3. |
Take
notes in your Journal.
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Activities To Do Part 2: |
See detail
instructions in the
Activities list below. |
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1. |
Skim Atwell Chs 11, 12, and 13 |
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2. |
Interview
your mentor teacher and/or other English teachers
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3. |
Take
notes in your Journal.
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Activities To Do Part 3: |
See detail
instructions in the
Activities list below. |
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1. |
Read Atwell Ch. 14 and
Z&D Ch. 19 |
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2. |
Interview
your mentor teacher and/or other English teachers
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3. |
Take
notes in your Journal.
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Activities To Do Part 4: |
See detail
instructions in the
Activities list below. |
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5. |
Blackboard: Discuss |
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6. |
Blackboard: Reflection
Paper |
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Activities
(span two weeks)
1. Read Z&D 18. Note in how many ways writing supports, and is a way into and through other subjects.
2. Interview your mentor teacher and a selection of
teachers of subjects other than English in your school—science, math,
social studies, art. . . .
 | Which teachers use writing in their classes? Do some
subjects use writing more than others? |
| How is writing used other than as a means of testing? |
| Do you see any of the kinds of writing Z&D
mention? |
| How does your mentor teacher use writing in the service of literature instruction? |
| Does the school have a Writing Across the Curriculum emphasis? Has the school or
district hosted any workshops in writing across the curriculum? |
3. Take notes in your journal.
Part
2: Writing to Create
AUDIO?
While writing in literary forms—memoir, fiction, poetry—is sometimes relegated to
lower grades, “creative writing” classes, or the study of specific literature (a poetry
unit). Yet many of the techniques “creative writers” employ can enhance expository
writing as well: metaphor and image, dialogue, descriptive detail add clarity and texture, and make
writing that much more convincing and real. In addition, writing is one way to make sense
of our lives and to transform our lives and visions into art. Teaching techniques of
memoir, fiction, and poetry gives students more opportunity to make writing a permanent part
of their lives.
Activities
(span two weeks)
1. Skim Atwell Chapters 11, 12, and 13 on memoir, fiction, and poetry. Especially note the following:
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What is memoir as opposed to autobiography? |
| Atwell’s definition: “the writer’s truth”
(p. 375) |
| The use of dialogue and description |
| “What doesn’t work” and “Qualities of memoir that work for us,” pages 389-391. |
| The elements of fiction Atwell describes (beginning p. 398), and how she uses
authors to illustrate. |
| How Atwell uses contemporary poetry to reach her
students? |
| “How to read a poem” and “what makes a poem resonate” (pp. 424, 425) |
| “What poetry does,” p. 427, and the types of poetry the students write. |
| Atwell’s emphasis on meaningful, concrete topics and on collaboration. |
2. Interview your mentor teacher or another English teacher in your school who teaches
memoir, poetry, or fiction.
| What elements of memoir, fiction, or poetry writing does he/she teach? |
| What elements of “creative” writing does your mentor teacher stress in expository
writing? |
| What does he/she see as the role of “creative” writing in his/her class? In the
curriculum? |
| If he/she has a great lesson for teaching one
aspect of these genres, add the lesson to the
Blackboard
Idea Exchange. |
3. Take notes in your journal.
Part
3: Writing to Take Care of Business
AUDIO?
Democracy is based on a literate population. We participate in our democratic society
largely through reading and writing—to gain information, to share opinions, to persuade, to
understand the views of others. It is not always easy, in a school setting, to lead
students into these more “civic” forms of writing. As Atwell says, “It
takes a different kind of effort to push out into the world of ideas—
social, moral, ethical, political—and pull it back into the writing workshop”
(p. 457). Typically, research papers, informative and persuasive writing are the functions of writing most stressed in
junior and senior high schools. Yet too often, these tasks are not viewed by students as meaningful or done for
reasons that appear real to the students. “To get a grade” is the primary reason for
writing in school, although in the real world, we write “to get the job done.”
Activities
(span two weeks)
1. Read Atwell 14. Notice particularly how Atwell
engages students in a variety of kinds of “instrumental” writing for real
purposes and audiences.
2. Read Z&D 19. Note their strategies for helping students “take genuine ownership” of
a topic and break the task of research writing into manageable processes.
3. Interview your mentor teacher or another teacher who teaches research writing.
| How does he/she teach various research processes? In steps? |
| How does he/she help the students take ownership of their work? |
| How does he/she ensure that the task and writing are meaningful? |
| Does he/she teach other types of civic writing, such as petitions, editorials,
persuasive essays, book reviews, interviews, etc.? If so, how? |
| If the teacher has students do these kinds of writing, how does he/she make them
“real”? Are issues and events part of the English class? Do they arise from literature
study? Other ways? |
| How do students publish their findings or ideas? (Do letters to the editor or
petitions get sent? Who learns the fruits of research?) |
3. Take notes in your journal.
Part 4: Final Activities
(second week)
1. Discussion: From what you’ve observed in talking to teachers, what is the relative weight
of writing to learn, create, and take care of business in the school? How would you
characterize your mentor teacher’s program? Your first posting should be a
description of writing to learn, writing to create, and writing to inform and persuade as they appear in
your school and mentor teacher’s classes. For some of you, creative writing will be
a larger
part of the curriculum, and for others, persuasive and research writing will be dominant.
Explain in your first posting some of the strategies, activities, and objectives your
teacher has. Then, let’s talk about what we’re seeing. Would you prefer a different
balance? Begin this at the start of the second week under the
"Lesson 10" discussion in
Blackboard.
2. Reflection paper: This lesson concerns writing for real audiences and purposes. Do you see
evidence of this in your school? In the classes you’ve observed? How might you make the
writing curriculum more authentic in terms of audience and purpose, given what you’ve read
in these chapters?
Turn this one-page paper into the Assignment Dropbox on
Blackboard under
"Lesson 10 Reflection" by the end of the second week.
The document should be a Word97 or higher format, 12 point
legible text. |
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