Writing to Learn and Lesson Planning

There was a lot of information to absorb and sort through in chapters 5 and 9 of Content Area Reading.  There were many useful ideas and information to use in the classroom, but I want to focus on the two I was most engrossed in; using a wide range of texts in a thematic unit and writing to learn activities.

During my time in junior high and high school I would often get bored with reading the same things over and over again. I enjoyed reading novels, short stories and poetry, but in other classes all we ever read were textbooks. I think my interest in science and math would have been more if I would have been able to read something other than the textbook. I got good grades in both subjects, but I was never really engaged except when we did hands-on lab work in science classes. As an English teacher I know I have an advantage because there are a wider range of texts that are more readily available than in other content areas. I am eager to use the sources available to me like digital texts, video and other technology based formats. Using all these available sources helps create a learning environment for all types of learners and allows students to show their understanding of content in a way that is as creative as they are.

I came away with so many ideas after reading about the writing to learn activities in chapter 9. I have often seen that writing assignments in classrooms are not designed for creative thinking or reflection, but restating information. It is often busy work that students do not get a lot out of. Microthemes, POVG's, unsent letters, biopoems, admit and exit slips, journals and learning logs all force the student to process the information and think about what they actually learned. These activities also help the teacher gauge where each student is in the learning process and where more time may need to be spent for further understanding. The section on biopoems was really interesting to me because it is something fairly quick and easy for a student to use as a starting point for an analysis paper or research paper to gather their ideas and start to organize those ideas into something cohesive and persuasive. All the activities in this section will help a student think critically and creatively instead of just reproducing information found in a text.