You know how it feels when you come across an article that
clearly expresses what you have been thinking about or what you believe? Well I
had that experience with Kathy J. Knipper and Timothy J.Duggan’s article on Writing to learn across the currlculum: Tools
for comprehension in content area classes. The article clearly outlines the
difference between learning to write which focuses on the processes/stages
involved in writing which “undergo multiple changes resulting in a published
document” with writing to learn which provides students with an opportunity “to
recall, clarify, and question what they know about a subject and what they
still wonder about with regard to that subject matter” (Knipper & Duggan,
2006). For this blog entry and for my individual assignment I will be focusing
on how student’s content knowledge can be assessed via writing for the
alternative assessment. I will also provide reasons as to why writing to learn
instead of learning to write is more effective in assessing student’s content
knowledge.
I believe that writing to learn is essential as it helps
students to think critically about a topic. Like the article says “being able
to express thinking in writing is a skill students take with them beyond” the
classrooms (Knipper & Duggan, 2006). We hear these word “critcal thinking”
countless times and how teachers need to develop this essential skill in our
students. However as teachers I believe that we cannot expect our studens to
think critically about a topic in our traditional assessments in the form of
projects or tests/exams when our students have not been exposed to low- stakes
writing assignments consistently throughout the year, that lead to deeper
critical thinking required in high-stake traditional assessments. Thus I am
focusing on writing to learn as a strategy to use for the alternative
assessment as it will not only result in good and well structured exam/test
scripts for the traditional assessments but more importantly because it is an
essential skill that students need to learn, as translating their thinking into
writing is one major form of communication that will help them in their work
life.
One issue teachers have with writing to learn as mentioned
in the article is that teachers are discouraged by the pile of marking that
needs to be done when writing tasks are given to students. The solution to this
issue which I also feel is brilliant and useful especially when assessing the
student’s content knowledge would be to use” rubrics and checklists to give
feedback” (Knipper & Duggan, 2006). Also through the use of such guiding
tools students will inevitably be learning how to write well together with
writing to learn. Thus good writing can be directed through the use of
checklists. Also checklists are extremely useful in encouraging students to be
“more self-directed in their mastery of content knowledge”. When rubrics are
clear and measurable they not only aid the teacher in marking but also and more
importantly gives the students an opportunity for “self monitoring and assessment”
of their own work and explains to them the critera that will be used to evalute
their work. Apart from using tools to aid in assessment, writing to learn is
also more effective when scaffolds in the form of subquestions are given to the
students in the intial writing processes so as to guide students to answer the
main question.
One thing to note is that writing to learn is not just
limitted to writing essay questions but can be used in “creative and critical
writing strategies” whereby the information is presented in a form of a poem,
word maps, journal writing and so on (Knipper & Duggan, 2006). Another
thing that is good in using writing to learn strategies is that it requires
students to be “active learners” by “putting their thinking and knowledge onto
paper instead of passive consumers of information. More importantly using the
writing to learn strategies “demands participation by every student, not just
those who volunteer (Knipper & Duggan, 2006).
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