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Providing feedback can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. Here are some tips.

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Providing feedback is proven to increase student learning, and there are ways to make the work involved more manageable.

NuPenDekDee / Shutterstock

We know that giving students feedback works: In his meta-analysis, John Hattie found that it has an effect size of 0.7, which is beyond the "hinge point," or average effect size, of 0.4-meaning that it has a significant effect on student learning.

However, giving feedback can be challenging, and it's certainly a lot of work. We've all taken student assignments home over the weekend or stayed late after school grading papers. This may be necessary from time to time, but there are strategies we can use to reduce this workload by working smarter for our students.

Reducing the Feedback Workload

1. Recognize when instructional feedback is called for: Sometimes written feedback is not the best or most effective strategy for improving student learning. If you collect an assessment and notice that there are significant errors common to many students' responses, it may be more appropriate to correct these errors through reteaching.

This is instructional feedback-using student assessments as a tool to reflect on our teaching and reteaching the content in a new way. Instead of providing written feedback for each student, we can say to the class, "I noticed that many of us didn't do so well. Rather than give feedback on every student's paper, I'm going to do something different to help us all learn."

2. Promote thinking, but don't do the thinking: A common mistake in giving feedback-one that often takes a lot of time, and isn't the best use of that time-is providing it in a way that does the thinking for students, rather than pushing them to think and learn. An example of this is correcting every grammar or punctuation mistake in a paper-circling all the capital letters that should be lowercase, or correcting all of the end punctuation. The student is given the answer and isn't required to do any cognitive work.

Instead a teacher might verbally say, "I'm noticing many capital letter and punctuation mistakes." Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey refer to this as providing prompts and cues that guide student thinking. It's better for the students because it requires them to figure out where they're going wrong. And handing this work to the students takes it off the teacher's plate.

3. Don't provide feedback on summative assessments: This might seem counterintuitive-or perhaps even mean. We always want to support our students, so why wouldn't we give feedback on major assignments?

The key question when giving feedback is: Will it be actionable and useful? If an assignment is truly summative-an end-of-unit test, for example-students most likely won't have an opportunity to redo it or to use the feedback. If that's true, providing detailed feedback may be a waste of time.

But note that if you're going to allow students to redo the assessment, you should provide the students who will redo it with feedback that will help them learn the content better. You don't need to provide feedback to the students who will not redo the assessment.

4. Address feedback requests: Another way to work more efficiently is to have students request feedback when they need it, rather than giving feedback to all students. Students may request it at any time-even on a summative, when you don't ordinarily give feedback.

One teacher I worked with offered feedback conferences that interested students could sign up for. These were similar to the 60-second interview, except the teacher's intent was to give feedback rather than to check for understanding. She worried that students who really needed the feedback wouldn't sign up, and she was correct about that-initially they didn't. But as other students found the conferences to be useful, all of her students became more inclined to request one when they felt they needed it because the conferences provided "just in time" feedback. These took place during normal instructional time.

5. Focus on self-assessment and peer feedback: Instead of doing all the work, put some of the onus on students to provide feedback. In his meta-analysis, Hattie found that self-assessment or student-reported grades had a significantly positive effect on student achievement. Giving students assessment criteria and having them gauge their progress not only increases student learning, but also saves time.

Peer feedback can also benefit both students and teachers, while promoting a collaborative classroom and culture. It takes clear protocols and modeling to support students in doing peer feedback, but the effort is worthwhile.

6. Don't wait: Instead of spending hours in epic sessions of writing feedback on a full draft, provide it in smaller ways that are spread out over time. This is not only more efficient but better for students, who get more digestible feedback that is actionable and timely.

For example, instead of providing feedback or setting up a peer review session that covers all parts of an essay-from the thesis to the organization to the conclusion-give feedback in chunks. Do a peer review on the thesis and the introduction, and then later give feedback on the next body paragraph, and so on.

Feedback is powerful and is proven to increase student learning, and there are many strategies teachers can use to make it more effective and efficient.

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6 Tips for Managing the Feedback Workload

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Providing feedback is proven to increase student learning, and there are ways to make the work involved more manageable.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT
STEP UP TO WRITING
Another school year has begun and teachers are wrestling with schedules, expectations, and student learning. How do we get students to understand and retain the concepts we are teaching? According to Dr. Steve Graham and other researchers, having students write about what they're learning is an effective way to clarify understanding and strengthen retention. How can you incorporate research-based writing strategies into your current instruction? In Writing Next (2007) and Writing to Read (2010), Graham's findings identify summary writing as one of several strategies that strengthen writing as well as reading comprehension.
Effective Instructional Strategies
Before exploring ways to enhance our students' abilities to summarize their learning, I'd like to examine a few basic tenets of effective teaching that could have a huge influence on our effectiveness as teachers of writing.

In their book Visible Learning for Literacy (2016), Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey work with John Hattie to identify the most effective instructional strategies for teaching literacy. Teacher feedback and teacher clarity, each with an effect size of 0.75, and distributive practice, with an effect size of 0.71, are three powerful strategies that significantly move the needle for student learning, especially in the realm of literacy acquisition.

Now, consider how typical writing instruction aligns with these practices. How do you provide feedback during a writing activity and use it to gauge the clarity of your instruction? Feedback and clarity thrive on mistakes. Do you routinely thank your students for making a mistake? Mistakes illuminate student perceptions, levels of understanding, and guide the needed redirection. While distributive practice may be a part of your instruction in some subject areas, how often do you incorporate it into your instruction to develop mastery of writing skills? When we have lesson time set aside for writing, so often students start with pre-writing and are expected to produce a rough draft by the lesson's end. Think about how this current practice leaves no room for the three strategies outlined above. If the first opportunity for feedback comes when students submit their rough drafts, we have missed chances to correct and strengthen the underlying skills required to write a well-planned draft.

Instruction embracing these strategies would tackle one element of the writing process at a time and provide time for practice. By practicing one element at a time, we've created opportunities for timely feedback which in turn would allow us to clarify instruction based on student responses. Also, slivers of daily practice will not sabotage our schedule since this can easily become part of the daily lesson plan.
Summary Sentences
With this mindset, consider how you might make time for teaching summary writing. Beginning with summary sentences provides an opportunity to summarize daily learning without requiring an inordinate amount of time. Student sentences can be easily shared, creating chances for feedback and clarifying instruction. Teaching a pattern and then providing time to practice, allows students to master the skill. One approach for writing summary sentences is called an IVF statement:

In this pattern, the "I" stands for Identify and has students begin by naming the source of information. It might be the name of a subsection within a chapter of a textbook or it might be the name of a short article.

The "V" represents the Verb. Providing students with a list of summary verbs enables them to quickly choose an appropriate one.

The "F" represents Finish the Thought and asks students to state the big idea from the text or lesson.

Students need to hear your thinking, so complete the three segments with your students watching and listening. Having them hear your reasoning is incredibly powerful. Give your students the chance to practice orally before expecting them to generate a written summary sentence. Consider allowing them to write their sentences on a wipe-off board and then share them aloud. Be content with the practice of summary sentences until you see evidence of mastery. As your students practice writing these sentences, their understanding of the content will continue to strengthen. If your students are expected to read independently in a book of their choosing, use IVF statements to hold them accountable and encourage reflection.
Fact Outline
Once you see signs of mastery, add the next step: a fact outline. At this point, students begin to identify the key pieces of information within the text or lesson's content. Model this next step again using a think-aloud approach. Show them your thinking and then start asking them to help you create a simple list of bulleted ideas. Consider how many opportunities for feedback and clarity you are creating by working repeatedly with your students during this shared practice.
Summary Paragraph
In the last step, students use their IVF statement and fact outline to write a paragraph. Repeated modeling of the culminating step is crucial. Moving from model to collaboration with your class provides practice with clarifying support. Throughout the process, students are thinking deeply about the content of longer pieces of text and the important elements. Being patient for the final product, the summary paragraph, allows your students to gain powerful insights into the writing process while continuing to analyze lesson content. Breaking the writing into slivers for practice sets the stage for teaching that solicits feedback, allows clarity, and honors distributive practice. Deeper content learning and stronger reading comprehension are bonuses that come with this instruction.

The strategy outlined in this blog comes from Step Up to Writing® Fourth Edition, a comprehensive writing program by Voyager Sopris Learning ®. It embraces multisensory instruction that empowers teachers to collaborate with their students across all aspects of writing. You know you 've delivered effective instruction when you ask your students "What's it all about?" and they accurately and masterfully answer you.
Jenny Hamilton, M.Ed. has been a tireless advocate for students who struggle to achieve academic success. Her training and background in behavior management enables her to share practical solutions regarding classroom management issues. She also works with teachers to raise awareness of the emotional damage that accompanies academic failure. Jenny's depth of experience in teaching elementary, middle, and high school students lends authenticity to her delivery when she trains and coaches teachers. A deep interest in the research behind best practices and the science of learning allows her to share with teachers and administrators current and relevant data on how the brain works and what can be done to change the trajectory of struggling readers and writers. She is currently an independent consultant focusing on literacy.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT STEP UP TO WRITING Another school year has begun and teachers are wrestling with schedules, expectations, and student learning. How do we get students to understand and retain the concepts we are teaching? According to Dr. Steve Graham and other researchers, having students write about what they're learning is an effective way to clarify understanding and strengthen retention.

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2005 Materials- Reading  Writing Across The Curriculum Workshop

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() All you need is a text and a reading purpose to start. We do the rest.

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Home K-5 6-12 Assessing Writing Best Practices Editing and Revision Mentor Texts Modes of Writing Philosophies on Writing The Writing Process Writing Assignments Writing Mini-lessons Writing Workshop Technology & Writing FREEBIES Assessing Writing Best Practices Editing and Revision FREEBIES Holiday Writing Mentor Texts Modes of Writing Philosophies on Writing Technology & Writing The Writing Process Writing Assignments Writing Mini-lessons Writing Workshop Collaborators FREEBIES

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Writing-to-Learn Activities - The WAC Clearinghouse

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Writing-to-learn activities can happen frequently or infrequently in your class; some can extend over the entire semester; some can be extended to include a wide variety of writing tasks in different formats and to different audiences. Use the list below to read more about writing-to-learn activities.

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I was lucky to have had great creative writing teachers when I was in high school. They were very passionate about literature, and because of them I continued to pursue creative writing. Those teachers also impacted me because of the great creative writing activities they used to allow the imagination to run free.

Here are some creative writing activities and prompts that will honor your students' imaginations. Let them free their muses to soar.

Creative Writing Activities to Explore

This terrific list of activities come from Marcus Roskilly in the UK:

1. Free Writing-5 minutes to write on a "spark word" determined by the teacher. Then pair and share.

2. Flying Balls-Bouncy Castle balls with an opening sentence written on each. Toss a random one to a student who continues the "ball rolling" with a further thought or another sentence on the first. The ball is then tossed to another student who does the same.

3. Modelling-Show them examples of good, interesting writing. Key in on students' interests.

4. Character-Show random pictures of people from the Internet. Develop a character from the image using prompt questions provided by the teacher.

5. Skills Lessons-Teach writer's craft elements in chunks and focus on specific ones at a time. Examples are dialogue, developing setting, conflict, narrative point of view, etc.

6. Music-Play low-volume atmospheric instrumental background music while students are working.

7. Learning Outcome and Success Criteria-Helping them know and understand the goal or outcome they are striving for and where they are going allows them to stay focused.

Other Engaging Approaches

Here are some select creative writing activities from Caroline Swicegood:

1. Life is Not Like a Box of Chocolates: Use the prompt: "Life is like a box of..." You fill in the blank and go from there.

2. No-Send Letters: If you know you'll never send a letter to someone of your choice, what would you write on it?

3. Raising Voices: Teacher creates character names, ages, and occupations, and assigns one character to each student. They create a monologue for that character.

4. Mixing Up Metaphors: Brainstorm overused metaphor phrases. Replace the last word of each metaphor with something creative and unexpected.

5. Found Poetry: Camera scavenger hunt around the campus-locate signs, labels, notes, words and snap pictures. Compile pictures in class and compose poetry (or create a collage) using only those words.

Creative Writing Prompts

Some prompts from Buzzfeed's 23 Of The Most Creative College Essay Prompts From 2014-2015

1. "You've just reached your one millionth hit on your YouTube video. What is the video about?"

2. "If you were to write the story of your life until now, what would you title it and why?"

3. "What's a question that has changed how you understand the world? What changed?"

4. "Design your own three-and-a-half week course and describe what you would do."

5. "A good story starts with a good beginning. Get us hooked in the first 150 words."

6. "What one invention would you uninvent if you could, and why?"

Teachers who display an infectious passion for great creative writing can inspire us to great heights. They will know how to tap into students' genius. It might take a simple interesting prompt that spurs their imagination.

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The Best Creative Writing Activities for Engaging Your Learners

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I was lucky to have had great creative writing teachers when I was in high school. They were very passionate about literature, and because of them I continued to pursue creative writing. Those teachers also impacted me because of the great creative writing activities they used to allow the imagination to run free.

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Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum

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In mathematics classrooms, there are many times when students are called upon to write, especially if we consider writing to include mathematical expressions or equations; representations such as tables, graphs, or other images; and narrative text.

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Isn't all good writing good writing? What does it mean to write in a disciplinary manner? What are the best practices for writing in all content areas? How do we make sure that students are career-ready? And what's the writing students need to do to be "college-ready"? So many questions, so little time!

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Featured Resources

April 2008
Jan M. Sabin
In this chapter from Writing Intention: Prompting Professional Learning through Student Work, Jan Sabin, who is with the Upper Peninsula Writing Project, demonstrates how she pushes her second graders to write about social justice issues by focusing on familiar things like the cafeteria, the playground, and their homes. More ›

October 2008
Ken Martin
Three books on content area literacy instruction aim to help teachers think about the literacy demands of all content areas while framing their arguments in a larger discussion of 21 st century literacies. More ›

Additional Resources

July 2012
The WAC Journal continues the conversation on writing across the curriculum with their November 2011 issue and provides a collection of articles by educators exchanging practical ideas, pertinent theory, and their WAC experiences. More ›

November 2011
Elizabeth Murchison is a scientist who works on the genetics of cancer in Tasmanian devils. She stresses the importance of writing even for scientists in order to get research done and disseminate results to the scientific community. More ›

October 2011
NWP is developing a variety of resources and online spaces to help educators provide the professional development necessary to implement the work of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. More ›

October 2011
Dr. Catherine Mohr, the director of Medical Research at Intuitive Surgical, is an expert in the field of robotic surgery, but writing is anything but robotic for her. She shares why she writes-to organize her thoughts and ideas, to understand, and to communicate. More ›

October 2011
Dyan deNapoli, a penguin expert and author of the award-winning book, The Great Penguin Rescue, shares her reading and writing background and how she came to write about penguins. More ›

October 2011
Ann Powers, a music critic who has written for The New York Times, National Public Radio, the LA Times, and the Village Voice, discusses the figures who have inspired her, how being female affected her perception of music, and how writing about music should be about trying to capture how it feels to listeners. More ›

October 2011
Evan Grant, a creative technologist, founder of seeper, and student of the sensory interactions between users and technology, describes the different ways he writes and the cathartic release he feels during the process. More ›

October 2011
Susan Gerhard, a San Francisco-based writer and editor, became a film critic to explore the world of ideas that films present. The best movies are those that spark arguments at dinner parties, she says. More ›

October 2011
Regenerative medicine specialist Dr. Anthony Atala's state-of-the-art lab grows human organs-from muscles to blood vessels to bladders, and more. Although he's immersed in sci-fi gizmos in his work, he says writing "is the communication vehicle that moves science forward." More ›

October 2011
Arvind Gupta, an Indian toy inventor and popularizer of science for kids, is known for turning trash into seriously entertaining, well-designed toys that kids can build themselves-while learning basic principles of science and design. He brings a similar spirit of exploratory playfulness to writing about science. More ›

October 2011
Gary Giddins, long-time columnist for the Village Voice and unarguably the world's preeminent jazz critic, writes about jazz to let the world know about America's "fecund and flowing" musical tradition, which is sometimes treated as though it doesn't exist-or exists only for those "in the know." More ›

October 2011
When people hear the name Freeman Dyson, they tend to think of breakthroughs in quantum physics, but Dyson is a prolific writer as well. He's known for bringing conscience and compassion to his books, which interweave scientific explanation and humanism. More ›

September 2011
Timothy Ferris, who has been called "the best science writer of his generation," discusses why he writes-and the importance of writing about science. More ›

September 2011
Anil Ananthaswamy
Anil Ananthaswamy, author of The Edge of Physics, says that writing is important in science to make jargon come alive with stories, to capture the precision and skepticism that's intrinsic to science, and to inform the world of the scientific truths that are so critical to our lives. More ›

The Missouri Reader: Journal of the Missouri Reading Association, July 2011
Two educators and researchers, one from a university teacher education setting and the other from an art museum, create museum-school partnerships. Drawing on sociocultural and ethnographic approaches, they argue that a co-expertise approach is required if the two institutional settings are to learn from each other and transform what is possible for the professional learning of teachers and students. More ›

July 2011
Developing creative and rigorous writing assignments can be challenging. To support teachers in planning and reflecting on writing assignments in all content areas, a group of teacher-consultants and Writing Project site directors collaborated to create this new framework for writing assignments. More ›

June 2011
This interactive version of Water Wonders / Las Maravillas del Agua features two young scientists, Sydney and Symon Starr, a sister and brother team who explore their world by asking questions and conducting experiments with help from their family and teachers. More ›

May 2011
Judy Willis, a neurologist and teacher-consultant with the South Coast Writing Project, explains how the teaching of writing is important for learning based on neuroimaging and brain mapping. More ›

April 2011
The National Writing Project joined a panel of literacy and science education experts on Capitol Hill to champion a new approach to STEM education that will make these critical disciplines more accessible to young people. More ›

March 2011
Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein
Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, the authors of Sparks of Genius: The 13 Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People, make the point that writing is essential for teaching the entire range of disciplines and critical to the training of innovative and successful scientists. More ›

February 2010
March is "Music in Our Schools Month," so the NWP is celebrating the intersection between music and writing by providing resources that link music, reading, and writing. More ›

March 2010
Listen to a post-conference discussion with NWP leaders about the Writing Project's work with content-area teachers and disciplinary literacy. This program follows up NWP's "What's Next: Possibilities for Literacy and Content Area Learning conference" held in March 2010 in New Orleans. More ›

March 2010
Watch the video of Elizabeth Birr Moje delivering the keynote speech on "disciplinary literacy" at the 2010 National Reading Initiative Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. More ›

January 2010
Art Peterson
Elizabeth Birr Moje makes the case for a disciplinary literacy that, rather than hewing to generic literacy "strategies," focuses on the literacy skills required of practitioners in a content field. Moje will be the keynote speaker at the 2010 National Reading Initiative Conference. More ›

December 2009
Rosalyn Finlayson
Rosalyn Finlayson, a teacher-consultant with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writing Project, finds Writing Without Boundaries a well-ordered and expansive introduction to strategies that lead students toward multigenre writing. More ›

April 2008
Keri E. Scheidel
In this chapter from Writing Intention: Prompting Professional Learning through Student Work, Kari Scheidel, who is with the Lake Michigan Writing Project, discusses how she immerses her students in the study of American history by introducing them to writing in genres such as plays, news articles, and brochures. More ›

The Quarterly, 2003
Julie McDonnell, Jane Zeni
Julie McDonnell and Jane Zeni review A Field Guide to Using Visual Tools by David Hyerle, which consists primarily of verbal snapshots showing schools and classrooms where visual tools have been used, illustrated with thinking maps, reviews of software, and visual representations of projects by students. More ›

The Quarterly, Summer 2002
Shirley Brown
Shirley Brown, reviewing Listening Up: Reinventing Ourselves as Teachers and Students by Rachel Martin, finds that Martin writes simply and makes abstract theories such as poststructuralism and psychoanalysis accessible and applicable to the classroom. More ›

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April 2008 Jan M. Sabin In this chapter from Writing Intention: Prompting Professional Learning through Student Work, Jan Sabin, who is with the Upper Peninsula Writing Project, demonstrates how she pushes her second graders to write about social justice issues by focusing on familiar things like the cafeteria, the playground, and their homes.

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When we consider how Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) has been implemented at a range of universities, we see that writing assignments generally fall into one of two categories: writing to learn (WTL) and writing in the disciplines (WID). A third category, writing to engage (WTE), falls between the two more commonly used types of writing assignments.

Please note that teachers can combine these categories and assign writing that meets the goals of each. More often, however, teachers choose to focus on one of these types of writing.

Generally, writing-to-learn activities are short, impromptu or otherwise informal and low-stakes writing tasks that help students think through key concepts or ideas presented in a course. Often, these writing tasks are limited to less than five minutes of class time or are assigned as brief, out-of-class assignments.

Because writing-to-learn activities are crucial to many WAC programs (because they best meet teaching goals through writing), this guide presents a great deal of information on writing to learn (WTL), including a detailed rationale, examples, and logistical tips.

A Fuller Definition of Writing to Learn

Theoreticians and practitioners alike agree that writing promotes both critical thinking and learning (See Adams, 1973; Applebee, 1985; Britton et al., 1975; Bruner,1975; Emig,1977; Herrington, 1981; Odell,1980; and Parker, 1985 in the citations below.) As Toby Fulwiler and Art Young (1982) explain in their "Introduction" to Language Connections: Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum:

Writing to communicate-or what James Britton calls "transactional writing"-means writing to accomplish something, to inform, instruct, or persuade.... Writing to learn is different. We write to ourselves as well as talk with others to objectify our perceptions of reality; the primary function of this "expressive" language is not to communicate, but to order and represent experience to our own understanding. In this sense language provides us with a unique way of knowing and becomes a tool for discovering, for shaping meaning, and for reaching understanding. (p. x)

In "Writing to Learn Means Learning to Think," Syrene Forsman (1985) makes the same point, but she directs her attention not to a theoretical justification but a practical rationale for writing to learn:

As teachers we can choose between (a) sentencing students to thoughtless mechanical operations and (b) facilitating their ability to think. If students' readiness for more involved thought processes is bypassed in favor of jamming more facts and figures into their heads, they will stagnate at the lower levels of thinking. But if students are encouraged to try a variety of thought processes in classes, they can, regardless of their ages, develop considerable mental power. Writing is one of the most effective ways to develop thinking. (p. 162)

The Consequences of Writing by Robert P. Parker and Vera Goodkin (1987) is an especially good early resource on writing to learn. Following a detailed discussion of the theoretical links between language (especially writing) and learning, these authors outline projects that focus on writing in entomology, clinical nursing, psychology, and mathematics, all with similar results: students learned key concepts and understood material more fully while also practicing some features of discourse for the specified discourse community. Thus, writing to learn can have additional positive effects in helping students mature as effective communicators even though the initial goal is to help students become better learners.

Examples of Writing-to-Learn Activities

Writing-to-learn activities can happen frequently or infrequently in your class; some can extend over the entire semester; some can be extended to include a wide variety of writing tasks in different formats and to different audiences. Use the list below to read more about writing-to-learn activities.

Using Technology with WTL Activities

If you teach in a computer classroom, if students can bring laptops or tablets to class, or if students have easy access to computers outside of class, WTL activities of all sorts can be adapted for in-class writing.

What Kinds of WTL Tasks Can Be Carried Out in a Computer-Supported Classroom?

Summarize and respond to readings

Summarize key points from prior class

Pose problems based on class material

Clarify unclear points in reading or class

Plan writing or speaking projects

Discover potential audiences

Practice format for assignments and projects

Record observations over time

Define key terms

Record round-robin comments for inductive learning

Organize group-response sheets

Capture peer review of drafts in progress

For additional ways to use technologies to support WTL, see How might computer technologies support students' writing in my classes?

Alternatives for Evaluating WTL Assignments

Because they are informal and often impromptu, writing-to-learn activities aren't marked for correctness. Rather, teachers or classmates quickly read the writing for a general sense of what students understand and don't understand.

Because most teachers cannot read through and comment on every WTL activity students complete, we suggest the following alternatives:

Use an occasional WTL warm-up at the beginning of class as a "quiz." Pick up a single sheet of paper or glance at a computer screen and comment briefly on students' grasp of a reading assignment or key concepts.

Pick up WTL material from five-ten students every day or every other day. Don't read every word, but skim quickly to identify tasks students might need help with-a reading that bogged down in class discussion, a page that has very little written, a page that has lots written.

Use different colored pens or highlighters to note points in selected entries. One color means "good idea," one means "consider pursuing this idea as a paper topic," another means "come back to this idea again and explore it in more detail," and so on.

While students are writing at the beginning and end of class, walk around the room and read over shoulders. This technique is especially easy if you have students writing on computers. Stop to talk to or jot a note on the writing of 3-4 students. If students don't like having you read over shoulders, ask them to select a few recent WTL activities and put those to one side for you to collect and read quickly.

Ask students to select their best or most provocative WTL writing for you to review.

Ask students to share WTL activities with one or two classmates.

Ask students to send the WTL writing that contains questions about course material to you over e-mail.

Ask students to post provocative questions or summary/analysis of readings on an electronic bulletin board or Web forum for class comment.

Logistical Tip: Always have students use loose-leaf paper, not a spiral bound notebook. Students might misplace some of their writing, but teachers can much more easily pick up single pages to review.

Beyond the Basics

The literature now available on writing-to-learn or writing-to-engage practices is deep and broad, encompassing far more than a brief bibliographic essay can accurately capture. Let me offer instead two pieces of advice - consult the more general resources noted here on low-stakes or writing-to-learn activities and look at the journals in your discipline that take up teaching issues. Those journals are most likely to include articles that situate writing-to-learn and writing-to-engage activities in the courses you might find yourself teaching. The articles themselves will glean from the robust resources to point you toward those titles that will best fill in background you might find helpful.

We collect below titles from across disciplines to offer some potential starting points, most from 2005-2012. We have organized the resources in two tables to cluster articles by discipline and then by writing activity. Please note, however, that disciplinary titles here point to writing to learn rather than writing in the disciplines (or writing to communicate) titles that are included in the WID section of this resource. All titles refer to the list of Works Cited that follows the tables.

Titles sorted by broad disciplinary focus

Arts/Humanities

Browning, 2011

Coe, 2011

Festa, 2009

Gillette, 2006

Hamilton & Gilbert, 2005

Hynd, Holschuh & Hubbard, 2004

Mulnix & Mulnix, 2010

Rivers, 2006

Rose, 2012

White, Wright-Soika & Russell, 2007

Carnes, Jennings, Vice & Wiedmaier, 2001

Harter & Quinlan, 2008

O'Halloran & Deale, 2004

Stevens, 2005

Titles sorted by type of writing activity or outcome emphasized

References

Ablin, L. (2008). Student perceptions of the benefits of a learner-based writing assignment in organic chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education, 85(2), 237-239.

Adams, P. (Ed.) (1973). Language in Thinking. Harmondsworth: Penguin Press.

Allain, R., Abbott, D., & Deardorff, D. (2006). Using peer ranking to enhance student writing. Physics Education, 41(3), 255-258.

Alvine, L. (2001). Shaping the teaching self through autobiographical narrative. High School Journal, 84(3), 5-12.

Anderson, K. (2010). The whole learner: The role of imagination in developing disciplinary learning. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 9(2), 205-221.

Applebee, A.N. (1985). Writing and reasoning. Review of Educational Research, 54(4), 577-596.

Armstrong, N.A., Wallace, C.S., & Change, S. (2008). Learning from writing in college biology. Research in Science Education, 38(4), 483-499.

Badley, G. (2009). A reflective essaying model for higher education. Education & Training, 51(4), 248-258.

Bahls, P. (2012). Student writing in the quantitative disciplines: A guide for college faculty. Indianapolis, IN: Jossey Bass.

Balgopal, M.M., & Wallace, A.M. (2009). Decisions and dilemmas: Using writing to learn activities to increase ecological literacy. Journal of Environmental Education, 40(3), 13-26.

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Wade, C. (1995). Using writing to develop and assess critical thinking. Teaching of Psychology, 22(1), 24-28.

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Walvoord, B.E. (1992). "Getting started." In McLeod, S.H., and Soven, M. (Eds.), Writing across the curriculum: A guide to developing programs. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Wandersee, J.H., Clary, R.M., & Guzman, S.M. (2006). A writing template for probing students' botanical sense of place. American Biology Teacher, 68(7), 419-422.

Watts, J., & Burnett, R.E. (2012). Pairing courses across the disciplines: Effects on writing performance. Written Communication, 29(2), 208-235.

Wheeler, S., & Wheeler, D. (2009). Using wikis to promote quality learning in teacher training. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(1), 1-10.

White, A.M., Wright-Soika, M., & Russsell, M.S. (2007). Epistolary connections: Letters as pedagogical tools in the introductory women's studies course. Feminist Teacher: A Journal of the Practices, Theories, and Scholarship of Feminist Teaching, 17(3), 204-224.

White, H.B. (2007). The eyes have it: A problem-based learning exercise in molecular evolution. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 35(3), 213-218.

Wolfe, C.R. (2011). Argumentation across the curriculum. Written Communication, 28(2), 193-219.

Wolfe, J. (2010). Rhetorical numbers: A case for quantitative writing in the composition classroom. College Composition and Communication, 61(3), 452-475.

Yang, Y., Yeh, H., & Wong, W. (2010). The influence of social interaction on meaning construction in a virtual community. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(2), 287-306.

Young, A., and Fulwiler, T. (1986). Writing across the disciplines: Research into practice. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook.

Additional Resources

For a more complete bibliography, go to http://www.iub.edu/~cwp/lib/wacgen.shtml and to the WAC Bibliography on the Clearinghouse.

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When we consider how Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) has been implemented at a range of universities, we see that writing assignments generally fall into one of two categories: writing to learn (WTL) and writing in the disciplines (WID). A third category, writing to engage (WTE), falls between the two more commonly used types of writing assignments.

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informal, in-class writing activities : assignments & activities : teaching resources : teaching with writing : center for writing : university of minnesota

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Informal, exploratory writing, when assigned regularly, can lead students to develop insightful, critical, and creative thinking. Experience tells us that without this prompted activity, students might not otherwise give themselves enough time and space to reflect on class content, or to forge connections that will allow them to remember and use ideas from assigned readings, lectures, and other projects.

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As a researcher and a teacher at a large pre-K-12 independent school, I have come to realize that teaching writing is analogous to physical training: There is compelling evidence suggesting that engagement in both activities should be routine, sustained, and deliberate in order to reap the most benefits. While there is little doubt that most teachers recognize writing as a foundational skill for academic success, effectively integrating writing to support content learning across the curriculum has its challenges. Several national studies indicate that the majority of teachers did not receive adequate and explicit instruction in writing pedagogy in their preservice training programs.¹ Additionally, subject-area teachers often face high demands in covering content knowledge and, consequently, feel that they lack sufficient time to separately address writing during class.²
Research-Based, Practice-Proven Strategies
It seems clear that the majority of content area teachers would benefit from having additional time and professional development dedicated to writing instruction. However, when these two are not readily available, there are still viable and effective strategies for addressing writing skills that do not require extended class time or extensive training. The following five strategies are relatively easy to prepare for and implement, flexible in method of delivery, and applicable to virtually all content areas to support student learning (see Table 1).

First Quantity, Then Quality. In addition to not receiving enough authentic opportunities to write at school, many students demonstrate reluctance or anxiety toward writing for a number of reasons, including negative experience, fear of making mistakes and being judged, and the perception that writing is a cumbersome task. Teachers can help students overcome these negative feelings associated with writing by deconstructing written tasks into manageable steps and prompting students to write regularly.

In encouraging students to write more, teachers should understand that not every written piece needs to be reviewed and assigned a grade. When students establish a writing routine, they are able to perceive writing as "thinking on paper" and begin to do so more naturally and consistently.

Developing students' habit of writing requires little more than asking each student to prepare a notebook for journaling. A simple but powerful activity is the Do-Now writing exercise in which students are expected to quietly and individually respond to questions in their notebooks when they first enter the classroom. This five-minute, pre-class activity can build a habit of writing in your students, set the tone of your class, and draw students' focus to the topic of the day's lesson.

Journaling can also be a better alternative to the traditional practice of calling on those students who volunteer to answer questions during class. A better use of time is to askall students to respond to the five questions in their journals before revealing the answers. In addition to ensuring that all students-including the shy and less proactive ones-engage in answering questions, another benefit of journaling is that students practice refining their conceptualizations of content knowledge in writing before they take assessments.

Group Feedback. Providing students with targeted and timely feedback is essential to their learning and improvement.3 However, a common problem is that when teachers actually take time to construct feedback, their feedback addresses too many areas at once and is presented only after an assignment has been submitted and graded.⁴ Such practice not only overwhelms the students but also reduces their motivation to carefully read and learn from the feedback.

Let's face it, the traditional method of giving written feedback for each student demands a lot of time and energy from teachers, and it is not always the best return on investment. Alternatively, a more efficient and effective approach is to target and teach a specific aspect of writing as students are working on their drafts; select and anonymously show sample student sentences; and provide feedback to groups of students or the entire class. When students receive feedbackbefore rather than after the submission of their finished work, they have a much greater incentive to make revisions and learn from their prior mistakes.

Model What You Expect. Another effective strategy for helping students understand the expectations for any written assignment is to directly model the writing process. The preparation for this assignment is as simple as projecting a blank Google document or the template of an assignment onto a screen for the class to see. The demonstration can be completed within 10 minutes of class time.

In a "write aloud," the teacher thinks aloud to the class while demonstrating the process of working on an assignment or a specific part of an assignment. After modeling a particular skill, the teacher can point to key phrases that can become sentence frames for students to use. This step-by-step approach can have a big impact by showing students-especially English language learners and struggling writers-how to craft sentences that are appropriate to a particular text type.

Creating Purpose with Role-Play. Children and adolescents are natural at role-playing, and teachers can leverage this skill to help them understand differences between text types in writing. To begin, I might ask students whether they have noticed that some professionals (e.g., aircraft pilots, police officers, scientists) speak in a certain way because of their roles. Students can usually come up with several examples and enjoy imitating these professionals.

I would then connect my opening question to writing and use a "translator activity" to develop students' awareness of the linguistic features of different text types, which is a process also known as "mode switching."⁵ Using a page with two columns, students write down their verbal response to a question or task in the left-hand column. Then, with my assistance when needed, students reformulate their responses in a language register or style that is appropriate for the task, situation, and discipline. In this activity, modeling a few examples can also be very helpful for students. After "translating" the sentences in the right-hand column, I ask the students, "Does this sound like it's written by a scientist [or historian, etc.]?"

For longer writing tasks, another well-known strategy often employed by language arts teachers is called the RAFT, which stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic.6 Instead of having teachers serve as the primary audience, the RAFT framework leads to more creative and engaging writing prompts and ensures that students clearly address these four dimensions of writing. This strategy has existed for more than two decades, and you can easily find numerous online examples for your content area.

Be-the-Rater Bingo Activity. Rather than have students guess what you want, why not invite them to play the role of the teacher? In fact, to become more independent writers, students have to learn to evaluate their own work.

One writing evaluation activity that students often greatly enjoy is what I callBe-the-Rater Bingo. After selecting six anonymous student samples that reflect a range of writing abilities, I form small "panels" of students and ask them to review and rate each sample using a rubric. Because I typically use a six-trait rubric, I give the students a blank 6 × 6 matrix to record their scores (see Figure 1 for an example). Finally, I reveal the scores that I assigned for each sample, and the teams whose scores consecutively match mine in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line get a bingo (and thus a small treat). When I introduced a little incentive and competition, my students studied the writing rubric more intensely than I have ever seen them do. Of course, this activity usually requires more time than the other strategies, but you can choose to assign the task of reviewing samples for homework or give students only one or two samples to rate instead.

Another effective strategy for analyzing writing requires no more than three highlighters of different colors. When I teach specific language features or literary devices (e.g., figurative language, sensory words, transition words), I ask students to use different colors to find and highlight evidence of each feature or device in mentor texts. This activity usually enables my students to see a holistic and colorful view of the rich language and various techniques that proficient authors use. When I ask students to repeat the highlighting task with their own writing, they usually see a stark contrast in colored content between their own work and the mentor text. Without receiving a word of criticism, students see what they need to do to enhance their writing.

Figure 1
Example of Be-the-Rater Bingo

Note: Students' scores that match the teacher's are highlighted in light blue.

Table 1
Examples of Writing Strategies Applied Across the Curriculum

English/Language Arts Science History/Social Studies

First Quantity, Then Quality
Examples of Do-Now writing activities

After reading the first chapter of the novel Holes, students respond to the following journal entry: Think about a time you experienced an unlucky event. Describe the situation, and use at least five specific adjectives.

Prior to teaching a unit on pressure in physics class, ask: Do you think it would be more painful to be stepped on by an elephant or a woman wearing high heels? Explain your answer.

Show a picture of an interesting Mayan artifact and ask: Imagine that you are an archeologist who just unearthed this artifact in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula. What do you think this item was used for?

Group Feedback
To address the comma splice error, the teacher selects and displays three to five sentences from anonymous student work that contains such an error. As a class, the students identify and fix the comma splices.

The science teacher shows sample student responses from a lab report assignment to explicitly address common problems, such as vague language, sentence fragments, and incomplete responses.

The history teacher displays four example thesis statements of varying quality and engages the students in a discussion about which thesis statements are the most and the least successful. The teacher then explains why.

Model What You Expect
For a small narrative piece, the English teacher demonstrates multiple ways of writing an interesting hook or opening sentence to introduce the reader to a topic.

The science teacher projects a lab report template onto a screen and demonstrates how to write a lab report using the appropriate conventions, verb tense, and voice.

The history teacher models how to cite a website, an article, and a book in MLA format by showing students how and where to find the key information. The teacher thinks aloud throughout the demonstration.

Creating Purpose With Role-Play
Using the RAFT framework, the teacher gives students several options to engage in a persuasive writing task. One of them includes writing a persuasive letter (format) as a concerned resident (role) to the city mayor (audience) about a proposal to address the problem of littering in the community (topic).

Translator activity: In pairs, students orally share the steps they took to conduct an experiment. While one is speaking, the other transcribes key phrases of what is said on the left of two columns. Then, the students exchange notes, and the teacher moves around the classroom to help students "translate" their verbal response in the left-hand column into the appropriate written form in the right-hand column.

In pairs, students write and act out an interview script about a history topic. One student serves as the interviewer while the other plays the role of a famous historian. In addition to providing factual knowledge, the historian must also respond to the interview questions using a scholarly tone.

Be-the-Rater Bingo Activity
Highlighter activity: To understand the rich language used in narrative writing, students use three highlighter markers of different colors to identify and highlight (1) action verbs, (2) precise and vivid adjectives, and (3) figurative language devices in a mentor text. Then the students discuss why the mentor text is successful in using rich language. They may also repeat the task with their own writing.

Using a checklist or rubric provided by the teacher, each student evaluates whether a classmate's science blog post has met all of the requirements. Next, the evaluator must post a comment containing at least one compliment and one lingering question.

Be-the-Rater Bingo: The teacher divides the class into groups of three or four students and gives each group a set of four anonymous reports from another history class with varying areas of strengths and weaknesses. Using a four-trait rubric and a 6 × 6 bingo sheet, the students review and score each report. Finally, the teacher reveals the scores, and the students look for bingo matches.

Concluding Thoughts
As an essential mode of communication in academic settings, writing is critical to the access of curricular content and demonstration of complex and critical thinking. Therefore, there needs to be a collective effort among teachers of all subject areas not only to present rich and purposeful opportunities to write but also to explicitly teach writing skills and use strategies that support content learning.

Moreover, instructional strategies for writing do not need to contain buzzwords from the latest educational trend or involve intricate steps in order to be effective, just as expensive, state-of-the art equipment is not necessary to get a solid workout. Instead of allowing institutional and personal barriers to prevent you from addressing critical writing skills in your class, focus on ways to embed and consistently implement effective instructional practices that do not require a significant amount of time and preparation. Much akin to physical training, a little writing exercise each day can go a long way.

1. Jennifer Gilbert and Steve Graham, "Teaching Writing to Elementary Students in Grades 4-6: A National Survey," Elementary School Journal 110, no. 4 (2010): 494-518; Steve Graham, Andrea Capizzi, Karen R. Harris, Michael Hebert, and Paul Morphy, "Teaching Writing to Middle School Students: A National Survey," Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 27, no. 6 (2014): 1015-1042; Joy Myers et al., "What About Writing? A National Exploratory Study of Writing Instruction in Teacher Preparation Programs," Literacy Research and Instruction 55 (2016): 309-330.
2. Susan Chambers Cantrell and Hannah K. Hughes, "Teacher Efficacy and Content Literacy Implementation: An Exploration of the Effects of Extended Professional Development With Coaching," Journal of Literacy Research, 40, no. 1 (2008): 95-127.
3. John Hattie and Gregory C. R. Yates, Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn (Hoboken: Taylor & Francis, 2013).
4. Lisa Lucas, "Write More, Grade Less: Five Practices for Effectively Grading Writing," Clearing House, 85, no. 4 (2012): 136-140.
5. Pauline Gibbons, "Mediating Language Learning: Teacher Interactions With ESL Students in a Content-based Classroom," TESOL Quarterly, 37, no. 2 (2003): 247-273.
6. Carol M. Santa, Lynn Havens, and Shirley Harrison, "Teaching Secondary Science Through Reading, Writing, Studying, and Problem Solving," in Content Area Reading and Learning Instructional Strategies, ed. Diane Lapp, James Flood, and Nancy Farnan (Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1996), 165-179.

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Writing Across the Curriculum: Strategies for Immediate Integration and Implementation

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As a researcher and a teacher at a large pre-K-12 independent school, I have come to realize that teaching writing is analogous to physical training: There is compelling evidence suggesting that engagement in both activities should be routine, sustained, and deliberate in order to reap the most benefits.

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Award-winning educator Jim Burke explains a variety of assessment techniques to help students improve their writing.

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Let's face it: In some cases, we ourselves have no choice as to what our students will write about on exams for the state or the SAT. Such institutional topics are inevitable fixtures in today's instructional landscape. More often than not, they illustrate one or more of the qualities Edmund Farrell argues are part of a good assignment. Farrell says that a good assignment does not:

Lead to an unfocused or too-short answer, such as "How do you feel about the ozone layer?"

Pose too many questions in its attempt to elicit a specific response

Ask students for too personal an answer, such as "Has there ever been a time in your life when you just couldn't go on?" or "What was the most exciting thing that ever happened to you?"

What is common to all good writing assignments, according to Farrell, is that they:

Are meaningful to the students, though this does not necessarily mean the assignments are personal

Are authentic, providing some context for writing that makes sense to the students; this does not mean they must always write a useful document such as a letter or an editorial, but it does mean that the writing should serve a purpose the students recognize as real

Ask for writing about "specific and immediate situations rather than abstract and theoretical ones"

Suggest a single major question to which the thesis statement of the essay is the answer

Help students practice specific stylistic and organizational skills

When you have students write, no doubt you do so with a specific purpose in mind. A social studies teacher might want them to show how one event led to another, or to contrast two cultures, leaders, or periods. For English teachers, writing assignments often involve responding to or interpreting other texts, though if you are teaching composition, the assignment might well call for a persuasive essay as part of a larger unit on argument. Whatever the subject, a good assignment requires clearly stated outcomes, all of which should be written out (instead of spoken or jotted down on the board). Here are some suggestions to keep in mind when designing an assignment:

Determine and clearly state the purpose of the assignment. Will students: analyze, compare/contrast, define, describe, evaluate, persuade, explain, and/or summarize? Take time to have students underline and discuss these words and their implications for writing. Focus on just one or a few of these skills with each assignment.

Specify the requirements of the assignment in writing. These might include all or some of the following:

Genre (e.g., essay, letter, opinion piece)

Length

Deadline

Documentation (e.g., works cited, bibliography)

Steps (e.g., brainstorm ideas, outline, draft)

Assessment criteria

Introduction

Directions

Standards addressed by this assignment

Requirements (e.g., number of texts they must refer to in their research paper, amount of data they must include in their analysis)

Identifying the standards for any given assignment is, in some districts, a requirement; for others, it is simply a useful part of the planning process, one that assures you are teaching your students the lessons the state expects them to learn.

Take time to discuss the assignment with your students, going over key words that signal which strategy to use (e.g., analyze, define, persuade, contrast). In addition to taking time to discuss the assignment, be sure they know what they must do and what a successful performance on this assignment will look like.

Here is a sample assignment, one I created for my freshman class at the end of a unit on our relationship with the natural world.

Our Relationship with the Natural World Writing Assignment
Topic
Compare and contrast the different types of relationships humans have with the natural world. Include examples from your own experience and the different texts we have read or viewed. After comparing and contrasting, make a claim about what you feel are our rights and responsibilities toward the natural world in general. Provide reasons and evidence to support your claim.
Requirements
2- to 3-page typed paper, double-spaced, with appropriate headings and bibliography. Must include examples and quotations from at least three texts
Evaluation
Papers will be evaluated according to the criteria outlined on the attached rubric.
This article is excerpted from Teacher's Essential Series: Content Area Writing

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Creating Effective Writing Assignments | Scholastic

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Let's face it: In some cases, we ourselves have no choice as to what our students will write about on exams for the state or the SAT. Such institutional topics are inevitable fixtures in today's instructional landscape. More often than not, they illustrate one or more of the qualities Edmund Farrell argues are part of a good assignment.