Other
Writing Strategies
There are many writing strategies that can
aide students in gaining ownership of their learning. The following
list are my favorites for use in content classes. They add depth in
understanding of the content for the student, the opportunity for
creativity and variety in class activities and insight into your students
from a different perspective.
Venn Diagrams; Compare and Contrast Essays
They are used to
help the students compare and contrast: the intersection of the circles is
the qualities the two items have in common (hence comparison) and the
remaining parts of the circles indicate the areas of contrast.
Journals
Similar to
learning logs, journals are a place for students to share their thoughts
with me and themselves in a private manner. I use journals less frequently
than learning logs as an opportunity for them to reflect affectively.
What’s working for them, what needs to be changed, where do they want to go
and how will they get there are all topics for reflection.
Short Stories
If a student
can write a word problem for a given equation, he must truly understand
the operations involved. Writing the questions, rather than the answers,
allows the students to be creative and find their personal voice in
mathematics. It still requires the skills of the concept, but goes beyond
memorizing a rote process to demand understanding the very structure of
the mathematics in the problem. I’ve also had my students write analogy
paragraphs in which they use one of the math concepts as an analogy of
their lives.
Math Autobiographies
Many teachers ask
their students to write their math autobiography near the beginning of the
school year. It provides a context for the grade history and gives insight
into the student’s background. Some students have been badly damaged in
prior classes and come to us with huge baggage about math classes.
Autobiographies alert us to fears and expectations that may influence that
student’s success in our class.
Letters to a Young Child
When I think my
students have mastered the jargon, but are missing the comprehension, I ask
them to write a letter to a fourth grade sibling (neighbor) explaining the
topic. They are not allowed to use any of the vocabulary that I know, but
must explain it in simple terms. This eliminates the “But you know what I
meant!” cries. Corbin Brace had a wonderful modification on this approach
by changing the young child to an alien who speaks English, but didn’t have
any physics terminology in their Alien Guide to English dictionary. If the
student’s comprehension is deep enough to be synthesized and translated down
to simple terms, then it has become their own.
Letters to the teacher
This strategy
allows the students to privately inform me of their reactions to a
particular exam, topic or other assignment. They ask the student to express
his responsibility for improvement or ownership of accomplishments. They
inform me of concerns that need to be addressed or insights into the
students and my teaching.
Think, Pair, Share
The Think, Pair,
Share strategy first gives a question to the class followed by time for
individual reflection and/or writing in response to that prompt. The
teacher then asks the students to turn and share their responses with their
partners. Finally, to bring the class back together and to get a
shared understanding of the concept, volunteers are asked to share out what
their pair had discussed.
Unit Summaries/ Reports
I was first
introduced to the formal unit summary in a math class through the College
Preparatory Math curricula. At the end of every unit, the student
creates a summary of the learning of the unit including main ideas,
illustrated with examples, key terms and definitions, examples of their best
work and a reflection on their experience with the unit. The technique
provides the students the opportunity to summarize their learning, synthesize
and connect the key concepts and reflect on their growth as learners.
Test Questions
Asking the
students to create test questions provides many benefits. They must first
decide or be told the main ideas to be tested. Secondly, they must have
enough mastery of the concepts to know how and what to ask. It provides
great review questions and lastly, they get to put their personalities into
the assignment, generally bringing lots of laughs.
Double Entry Journals
There are almost
as many note techniques as teachers. One particularly intriguing idea is a
double entry style used by Cornell Law School that has two columns, one for
notes and one for questions to further pursue. At the bottom of the page is
a place to summarize the key concepts similar to the learning log.
I will have my
students read the section and take notes on it before they come to the class
where it is presented. I find this helps preset them to the information,
frees me from dictating theorems and formulas and allows them to come with
questions or confusions. Writing the notes, listening to me talk about them
and watching me apply them hits the three learning modalities: kinesthetic,
auditory and visual.
Ø
Janet’s Note taking Method
After realizing
that most of my students simply copied the “blue boxes,” I changed the
format to summarize the information into sections for: new terms,
definitions, diagrams; formulas; properties; processes; and examples.
Asking them to analyze and synthesize takes them more time, but ensures they
have read and thought about the section.
I.
New Terms/ Definitions/ Diagrams
II.
Formulas
III.
Properties
IV.
Processes
V.
Examples
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