Modeling + Content Area = Better Writing

From the desk of Carol C…

Writing in the content or subject areas has never been easy for me to teach.  Part of my problem, I think, was I didn’t know what to expect from my students.  After I figured that out, I struggled with how to teach them to meet my expectations.  Here’s how it came together for me.

At first I thought I was teaching my class how to write about math, but I was leaving out an essential component…MODELING.  All I did was ask my students questions or give them directions.  “Write about what you learned and what you don’t understand.” or “What you’re thinking about math?”  Needless to say the results were painful to read just as I am sure they were painful to write.

After this revelation I started modeling the type of writing I expected to see, but more importantly I modeled the type of thinking my students needed to do in order to write a quality entry.  I always had them begin with something they understood.

• Today we learned how to take apart numbers.  I know that 43+61 is the same as 40+60 added to 3+1.  They both equal 104.  You can do this with any number, and sometimes it makes it easier to understand.

Are you thinking your students can’t do this?  Sure they can with enough modeling and practice.  Too easy for your students?  Model and expect a higher level of thinking.

 

I also model an entry which shows a student not understanding all or part of the lesson

• Today we learned how to take apart numbers.  I know that 43+61=104.  3+1=4.  Put that down and then add 4+6 and get 10.  Put it down and then you have 104.  Why do I have to do it another way?  It’s confusing.

This kind of writing makes students think through what they know and what confuses them.  It can, also, help them to figure out a new concept they didn’t understand during class.  Really!  The more times they write the better they become at examining their own thinking.  Of course this takes a while, I realized.  Thinking about your own thinking is a high level process.

 

In science and social studies I did much the same thing.  I always modeled first for the first month.  Deciding what to have my students write in science took trial and error.  Many times what I taught that day was completely new to them.  It was hard for many of them to put any thoughts down even in a summary.   The material seemed too hard to understand so I usually wrote an entry with their help.  If I felt they could write a helpful entry, my model might look like this…

• Today we learned about force and motion.  I don’t understand anything.  I think motion might be moving, but I’m not sure.  I have no idea what force means.  Does it mean like make?  Like make somebody do something?  I just don’t understand!

 

Clearly I didn’t get the concepts for the day across to this student, yet he did attempt to figure out what the words meant.  “Motion might mean moving…” and “Force…does it mean like make?”.  I use an entry like this to point out that some connections or questioning needs to be done.  Thought has to go into the entry even if the student doesn’t understand completely what I’ve taught.

I might model a more advanced entry like this:

• Today we learned about force and motion.  I think the idea of motion is cool.  Now I understand why the movies were called motion pictures.  They move!  When you motion to somebody you move to show them what to do.  And I learned that an object in motion never stops until something makes it stop…friction.  It’s like when I talk too much.  The only thing that stops me is the friction of adults.  Force means pushing something.  May the force be with you!

 

This student has made connections to his own life and to the world around him.  He was even able to make a joke about adults and friction.  Yet, this entry tells me he may not completely understand “force”.

What might social studies look like?

• The Bill of Rights.  Wow!  How smart were our fathers to come up with this?  The Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments to our Constitution.  James Monroe, I think, came up with these.  He thought we needed to have individual rights.  The 2nd one is what I’m most interested in…the right to bear arms.  People are arguing about this one and what it means.  My mom and dad think the only people who should have weapons are people with badges.  Since I don’t have a badge I can’t even have a BB gun.  

This entry shows me the student has a basic understanding of the Bill of Rights.  He doesn’t have the author correct, but this is a small mistake since my emphasis was on what the rights are and why they were added to the Constitution.  He has this and then goes on to make a connection to his own life.  This entry could be stronger, and I’ll continue to model writing stronger ones as my class is ready for them.  This is a good start.

(Writing about what you read is a harder topic and takes more explanation, I think, so it will be the topic of a future blog.)

It wasn’t easy to get started and stick with writing in the content areas.  I thought my students would never get the hang of it.  They did eventually, and began to change their “I don’t understand…to “I was thinking…”.  It was hard to change my mindset of “got to get this one more thing taught” to “my class gains so much more from this type of writing than from one more concept I had to teach”.

Try having your students keep a notebook in any subject for a month.  Make sure before you begin you know exactly what you expect from your students.  If you start out with your expectations too high, then drop back down in your modeling and scaffold your students up to your level of expectation or beyond.  It will be well worth your time and that of your students!