In Teaching Adolescent Writers (2006), Kelly Gallagher proposes that students need many opportunities to practice their writing in the classroom while being guided, not graded. He points out that basketball players practice many times a week before game day; just as players need practice to improve their skills in a low-stakes environment, writers need to write without being evaluated. As a teacher, this concept freed me from reading, annotating, and assigning a number or letter every time my students put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).
Simultaneously, informal assignments gave students the freedom to experiment with less fear of failure. If students only write major essays or reports, they will never learn to play with language, explore creative ideas, or grapple with a difficult concept for fear of making a mistake and earning a poor grade. Giving students opportunities to write paragraphs, poems, journal entries, and even notes to themselves or their classmates can create outlets for thinking without the need for assessment.
Avoiding the Feedback Trap with Informal Tasks
Of course, assessment and feedback still benefit student learning. Different writing assignments, however, demand different assessments and feedback. As teachers, we may wish to know how deeply students grasp a concept in our discipline (or where they are making mistakes), how well they remember earlier content, how they are applying metacognition, or if they can transfer knowledge to new situations.
We may also want students to think on paper, which can give them a chance to slow down their thoughts, examine them, and uncover ideas or conclusions that they might not have reached without the act of writing. Sometimes, we may want our students to interact with each other through silent conversations—sanctioned note-passing—that can create deeper, more thoughtful communication and give quieter students a chance to participate more fully in discussions.
In each of these instances, teachers look for different criteria. If we ask students to write about last week's lessons, we may have a checklist of facts we want them to include. If we ask students to brainstorm ways to solve a problem, we may want to see their thought process rather than a solution. You may decide to grade these informal writing pieces, assess them as quizzes, or just make sure students complete them.
Teaching Manageable Chunks of the Writing Process
In an ideal world, students would write several long analytical, expressive, or informative pieces relevant to the discipline at hand. However, educators can teach and assess the integral concepts of thesis statements, evidentiary support, and elaboration in short chunks and in isolation. Using teacher-created models or templates, like those in They Say/I Say (Graff, 2010), can help demystify the writing process.
In many cases, students can write a few sentences or a paragraph to demonstrate critical-thinking skills. For example, using a particular prompt, students could write only a thesis statement or one body paragraph. Teachers would give feedback on the clarity of the thesis or paragraph, use of supporting details, or a discipline-specific skill. This quick method allows teachers to assign writing tasks more frequently and gives students more valuable practice.
Putting Grammar into Perspective
In my experience, grammar can be a stumbling block for many teachers in making time for writing. Teachers across all disciplines may hesitate to assign writing because they feel ill-equipped to teach or assess grammar while simultaneously feeling required to do so. However, grading for grammar may be unnecessary and counterproductive when the purpose is to inspire thinking, encourage classroom communication, or assess knowledge or content-based skills.
In English classes, where grammar is a content-based skill, teachers may choose to instruct and assess one grammar skill at a time (ideally differentiated by student or group), to avoid overwhelming students. Even English teachers don't always need to grade for grammar. That's not to say that grammar instruction isn't important, just that it needn't always be the focus of writing. In fact, students who struggle with grammar may gain confidence and motivation to write if they are only judged on their content.
So how might implementing these strategies look in an actual classroom? Here are several painless ways to add writing to your students' daily routines.
- The bell-ringer or warmup time is perfect for writing. Whether students respond to an interesting quotation, answer a question related to previous or upcoming content, or write about a topic of their choice, this can be an assignment that the teacher reviews briefly or doesn't check.
- Exit tickets in the last five minutes of class can get students to respond (in writing) to the day's lesson by recapping content, making predictions, or posing questions.
- Student letters to teachers or classmates about the material can help clarify misunderstandings. Teachers may choose to reply individually, in differentiated groups, or to the entire class. Tools such as Google Classroom can help streamline this communication.
- Silent conversations can encourage student participation. Have students add their thoughts to a posted piece of chart paper (with a question, prompt, or quote in the middle), on loose-leaf paper passed around a table, or on a networked digital document.
- Even one question that requires a written response, added to quizzes and tests that are mostly multiple choice, can provide an opportunity for students to think critically, reflect, or make connections.
We wouldn't expect students to pass a test with no preparation. We must give students the chance to write briefly, informally, and for a variety of purposes to help them improve as writers and thinkers.
