What Are Some Possible Writing-To-Learn Activities?

What are some possible writing-to-learn activities?

Response journals are student responses to reading, viewing of a video or film, experiencing a lesson, observing an experiment, taking a field trip or listening to a guest speaker. Because students have these experiences in all classes, this strategy is useful across the curriculum. One advantage to using response journals is that all students have the opportunity to record their thoughts prior to small- or whole-group discussion.

Learning logs have regular student entries, which can include reflections on homework, responses to reading, responses to specific teacher prompts, reflections on the process of learning, notes on content studied, research notes or observations.

Writer’s notebooks contain observations, memories, favorite quotes, personal experiences, responses to literature, family stories or descriptions of scenes. These musings often become “seeds” for more polished pieces. Writer’s notebooks should be a part of all school writing programs. While most often used in language arts classes, students may include notes or entries from other classes.

Exit slips are brief student responses to learning experiences written before leaving class.

Students might state two things they have learned, two questions they have or one of each.

Students hand in the slips before leaving class. Teachers review them to determine instructional relevance. It was through the use of exit slips years ago that I had to face the startling revelation that teaching does not always equal learning! Often my next lesson became a response to misunderstandings or questions from the day before.

Admit slips are similar to exit slips, but students give them to their teacher at the beginning of class. They may reflect students’ experiences with homework assignments from theprevious night or responses to a prompt. Teachers collect and respond to these at thebeginning of class to clarify homework issues and to set up the lesson for the day.

Inquiry logs are notes about explorations, experiments and interviews during an inquiry process. Students record notes on learning, responses to learning, reflections on the inquiry and questions raised in their minds. These are particularly helpful to students in science class or during a research project in any class as they gather information and capture ideas.

Mathematics logs are notes about specific mathematical concepts or problems. Students can write about a problem they have solved and then reflect on strategies used. Log entries give teachers an opportunity to “read the minds” of their students as they deal with mathematical concepts and calculations.

Double-entry journals are entries with a vertical line down the center of the page. On the left students record what they saw, read, heard or observed in any class. On the right they record opinions, reflections, connections, concerns, questions and reactions in response to what they have written on the left. These can also be used for homework assignments. Students can record questions about an assignment in the left column and answers in the right.

Study guides are developed by students and include both materials read and notes from classroom lectures. Such guides should be organized logically and delineate clearly major ideas and supporting details. Notes will also reflect whether the information was contained in multiple sources, such as an article read in class and a teacher lecture.

This long list seems to imply multiple notebooks for students. Students may simply use the strategies for different kinds of entries within the same notebook.