Supporting Literacy in the Content Areas:

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Supporting Literacy in the Content Areas

• Science, Math, Social Studies

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The 90/ 90/ 90 Schools A Case Study

• More than 90 percent of the students are eligible
  for free and reduced lunch
• More than 90 percent of the students are from
  ethnic minorities
• More than 90 percent of the students met or
  achieved high academic standards

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Five Characteristics common to all 90/90/90
Schools

• A focus on academic achievement
• Clear curriculum choices
• Frequent assessment of student progress and
  multiple opportunities for improvement
• An emphasis on non-fiction writing
• Collaborative scoring of student work

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Writing in the content areas

• Writing focuses on challenging students with the
  kind of writing they will be required to do in
  the real world.
• Provides a way to assess student understanding
  and recognize misconceptions.
• Allows students to discover or recognize their
  own thought processes through their writing
• Is a way to move toward higher-order thinking in
  the subject areas

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Content area writing

• Science hypotheses, procedures to answer
  questions, research findings, conclusions, next
  steps all summarized in lab reports, T-charts
  (graphic organizers), labeling diagrams
• Math tables, story problems, graphs,
  descriptions of patterns and problem solving
  techniques, writing new problems, graphic
  organizers
• Social Studies descriptions of primary sources
  (photos, journals, newspapers, maps, documents,
  photographs, etc), generating first person
  accounts, research findings, arguments for
  deliberations

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Moving toward cross-curricular higher-order
thinking with writing tasks

• RememberingRetrieving relevant knowledge from
  long-term memory
• UnderstandingConstructing meaning from
  instructional messages, including oral, written,
  and graphic communications
• ApplyingCarrying out or using a procedure in a
  given situation
• AnalyzingBreaking material into its constituent
  parts and determining how the parts relate to one
  another and to an overall structure or purpose
• EvaluatingMaking judgments based on criteria and
  standards
• CreatingPutting elements together to form a
  coherent or functional whole, reorganizing
  elements into a new pattern or structure (p. 31)
• Being metacognitiveBeing aware of one's own
  comprehension and being able and willing to
  repair comprehension breakdowns when they occur

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Model understanding performances with writing
tasks

• 3-week nutrition unit for 4th-graders
• Performances students demonstrate
• Understanding of 6 types of food in the food
  pyramid by classifying food from commercials in
  pyramid schematic (science/math/writing)
• Understanding of food labeling by making tables
  out of food information (math)
• Practical understanding of nutrition by
  developing nutritious menus (writing)
• Journaling food intake (science/writing/math with
  caloric tabulations)
• Writing letters to consumers (writing/social
  studies)
• Dramatizing grocery store experiences
  (arts/writing)
• Writing commercials focusing on nutritional
  values

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Writing in the Middle School

• Writing Rubric
• Student-Teacher Conference Worksheet
• Writing Prompts
• The Writing Process

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WRITING TO IMPROVE THINKING

• Students have to process what they know, in any
  given subject, on any given topic no matter what
  the subject of writing.
• Purpose at the High School is to improve thinking
  in every subject- inevitably yielding better
  results for all students in all subjects and on
  written performance assessments.
• Writing prompts are developed by content area
  teachers in collaboration with English teachers.
• Writing Day!- One hour writing delay schedule.
• Drafts submitted to content area teachers to edit
  for content, improve thinking and encourage
  students to expand ideas.

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High School continued

• Students develop final copies based on the VC
  K-12 rubric and comments specific to rubric
  areas.
• Final copies, along with rough drafts, are handed
  in to English/ Social Studies teachers for
  evaluation in improvement of ideas and expanded
  thinking.
• Writing counts as 10 of English/ Social Studies
  grade.
• Our goal at the High School is to develop a
  community of thinkers and writers, as well as to
  promote conversations about writing among
  students, faculty and administrators.

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Incorporating Writing Into Content Area
Instruction

• Topic __________________
• Examples of Writing Assignments
  __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
  ______

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What Are Rubrics?

• According to Heidi Goodrich Andrade A rubric is
  a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a
  piece of work.
• It determines what counts within a piece of
  writing.
• Furthermore, it conveys the degree of quality for
  each specified criterion from excellent to poor.
• Andrade, H. Understanding Rubrics. Educational
  Leadership (1997) 54(4).

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Why Use Rubrics?

• Rubrics can be powerful tools for both teaching
  and assessment.
• Rubrics help students become more thoughtful
  judges of quality writing.
• Rubrics reduce the amount of time teachers spend
  evaluating work.
• Rubrics help teachers accommodate different
  learning abilities.
• Rubrics can be easy to use and explain to
  students if the correct approach and vernacular
  is used.

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VCSD Rubric
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How Is The Rubric Incorporated Within Each Grade
Level?

• Grading refer to color codes rubrics
• Grade Level Tasks see handout

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Questions