Using Writing to Promote Learning

This page offers four ways to increase learning and four ways to increase class participation.

Four Ways to Increase Learning

  1. Assign a journal

    2. Journal assignments take a variety of forms: field notes or lab notes, reading response journals, daily comments on public events, inventories, personal reactions. Journals can be public or private. Communicating by way of an e-mail distribution list is an example of a public journal. For a successful journal assignment, monitor progress, read entries frequently, and define parameters.
     
  2. Assign microthemes
    Microthemes are brief essays written in a limited amount of space, such as a 5" by 7" index card. Use this kind of assignment when you would like something more formal than journal writing. Evidence suggests that frequent, short pieces of writing have a more positive effect (for learning and writing) than one long piece of writing. Microthemes challenge students to communicate concisely what they have learned.
     

  3. Manage the long-term paper
    Establish frequent assignments that begin early in the process. Start with a proposal that has a defined format. Ask for several progress reports over a period of weeks. Or ask for reviews of specific sources being used in the term paper. Assign microthemes along the way--definitions of key concepts, descriptions of major processes. Ask for analysis as well as summaries or reports very early in term-paper assignments.
     
  4. Establish a community of writers
    Create a system to engage your students in each other's writing projects. For instance, if you assign an article review, establish pairs or trios of students to read two or three articles so that they can use each other for debate and analysis as they each write one of the reviews. If all of your students are writing on the same topic, establish a system in which groups of students (three or four) read each other's drafts and then write an analysis of the similarities and differences in their papers. Reproduce a professional writing context: establish a system of blind review among your students for formal pieces of writing.
 

Four Ways to Increase Class Participation

  1. Five minutes of in-class writing
    At the beginning of class discussion: Start the discussion by asking a question that everyone writes about for five minutes. The quality and quantity of class participation in the ensuing oral discussion is guaranteed to increase.

    In the middle of a lecture or discussion: This is a good technique to create a break in the lecture, to start a new direction, or to encourage active participation.

    At the end of a lecture or discussion: Ask students to summarize what has been said, to identify the main points of the class period, to identify points of confusion or misunderstanding. Or ask students to write their responses if the material has been controversial.
     

  2. Fifteen minutes of out-of-class writing
    Assign a topic or ask a question based on reading or class materials that students will address in fifteen minutes writing (a page or less). Do this frequently--once a week or every class period. Expect many students to complete the assignment right before class. This kind of writing will promote class discussion. Consider asking students to exchange their writing at the beginning of class and write responses. They will be uneasy at first, but if this kind of writing becomes a regular feature of the class, they will become quite good at responding.
     
  3. Student responses to student questions
    This kind of assignment works especially well in technical fields. Ask students to write down their questions on an index card ("I don't understand how..."). Students exchange cards and write answers to the questions. The answers can be written in class or out of class. Extend this assignment by asking two or more students to write responses for comparison.
     
  4. E-mail communication
     Ask students to communicate with you weekly by e-mail. You can identify specific topics that they will address. Create a version of an Internet list group or news group with an e-mail distribution list for your class (it's relatively easy to do this).

Looking for more information? Contact Kathy Evertz, Director of the Writing Center, 766-5004, kevertz@uwyo.edu.

 

Last update November 15, 2006