Designing Effective Writing Assignments in the Content Areas

Here are some quick notes from the pre-conference session.

Presenter:

Beverly Ann Chin
University of Montana
Professor of English
Beverly.chin@umontana.edu


New Resource:
She is publishing a new resource called "Grammar for Writing" grades 9-12. The publisher is Sadlier-Oxford, 2007.


Writing Process Steps:
1) Pre-writing: which takes place before you even begin writing-could include brainstorming, gathering resources, etc.
2) Writing: Just a 1st draft, not final anything. Don't worry about spelling or grammar, just get your ideas down before they evaporate!
3) Responding/Revising- Central part of the process! Looking for self revision and peer revision. Again focusing here on content not necessarily spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Ask the questions: Who is my audience? What is my message? What is my purpose? Is it clear? Is there another way to communicate this that would make more sense?
4) Editing- Following the revision step edit for grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.
5) Publishing/Sharing: Could be on a large or small scale, but the audience should NEVER be just the teacher. There should always be another audience.
6) Evaluating: Did I reach my audience? Was my message clear? Did this writing serve my purpose?


1978 Montana Writing Project:
RAFTS acronym

R- Role of the writer
A- Audience for the piece
F- Format of the writing (what genre?)
T- Topic or subject or writing
S- Strong Verb (what action does the writing describe or detail?)


Are we reading like writers and writing like the reader?