A Step Back Before Moving On

So, how do we put the writing we have been hearing about to work? 

The authors vote for two simple strategies. The first is to make the WTL first and last. First when the day begins as a warm up or bell ringer; first as in the beginning exercise for a new unit; last as the final activity before leaving class. It’s all about activating thinking.

The Beginning - The New Unit

We’re all familiar with the Know, Want to Know, Learned (KWL) exercise. It is a useful tool that can help students access prior knowledge, predict what they do not know about a subject or set goals for their learning, and after all is said and done it can alert the teacher to what knowledge has been gained, what misconceptions have occurred and provide clues about how to proceed.

Along the Way Through the Lesson, Unit, Semester

The authors believe that WTLs should be used constantly to help students stop and collect their thoughts, sort out ideas, notice and hold their thinking (about the current lesson), review and adjust goals (take responsibility for their learning), and move on to the launch pad of progression through the lesson, unit, lab, etc. The writing break is a prelude to other forms of short writing that will help students do more than memorize facts and roll them into answers. Synthesis is the next step. It is taking things that have been learned and combining them into something new.

Think about the following analogy. Flour, yeast, eggs, sugar, salt, water, oil, baking soda, and vanilla are ingredients that are known. A bowl is a receptacle for initially holding them. An oven can be the source of the catalyst (heat in this case) that can transform the ingredients. A certain type of pan (baking pan) can be used to contain the catalytic reaction. The ingredients are mixed together, poured into the baking pan, transferred to the oven, heat applied and after a certain amount of time the ingredients, with the help of kinetic and heat energy, containment vessels and the application of a carefully thought out sequence of events is transformed into a cake. The resultant cake bears no resemblance to what started as separate components, morphed into a soupy mixture and was subjected to a reaction chamber.

Hmmmm….sounds like the churning process inside an inquiring mind that combines information and turns it into something that is more than the sum of the bits of information and instructions that went in-synthesis.

Discussion

Writing is not enough verbal exchange or discussion is required. Confusius and Edgar Dale agree that doing creates understanding. But how can large-group discussion provide the “do” component of the learning process. It can’t because only one student at a time can interact with the discussion leader while the others wait, wait, wait, lose interest. That is why lots of valuable topic talk must be done “student-to-student.”  The authors argue that it can be used on its own or as a prelude to stronger but shorter whole-class discussions.

Short writing plus focus begets synthesis which equals retention.