Writing to Learn

I have found that, like myself, many of my students write for three primary reasons: to communicate something, to clarify thinking, and to learn new concepts and information (or at least to make notes when attempting to do the latter). When Common Core and Essential Standards came on the scene, it was made clear that every teacher, no matter the subject, must include writing in the curriculum. Great! I already do that since there are discussion questions on every assessment I give. The writing I was "including" in my instruction did little to benefit the learning taking place.  One significant challenge in my classes is how to move students from thinking about science as a collection of facts to be memorized toward a deeper understanding of concepts and scientific ways of thinking. Having students complete essay questions was just another way for them to regurgitate information they had simply memorized for the sake of testing. Something had to be done about that...enter Pinterest.

Though I resisted the it's lure for several years, I finally gave in to the Pinterest craze last year. How I ever found novel ways to teach concepts prior to that remains a mystery! I found that neon dry erase markers write beautifully on my lab tables because they are made of a nonporous substance. My classes thought I had made the short trip to crazy when I had them clear their tables, take a neon marker, and write ON THEIR TABLES! Several times, we've used them to brainstorm and generate prior knowledge about a particular topic. One student took a picture of the destruction to public property and sent it to me via e-mail so I could use their ideas for discussion starters the next day.

As we began the heredity unit in biology, my students did the brainstorming activity. I've included one group's results here.

The following day, we discussed the results of each group. As students asked questions, I made a list...why can brown-eyed parents have blue-eyed children? Are dominant traits always the most common traits? If a dark skinned African-American person marries a light-skinned person, what color would the children be? What do mutations have to do with genetics? Lots of questions from inquiring minds. And, for the most part, they weren't asking questions to be funny. They wanted legitimate answers. I went on with the remainder of the lesson.

When class resumed the next day, it was time for writing to learn. Instead of using the large post-it papers, the writing took place on the tables. I crafted some genetics/heredity problems from the list generated in the previous class. Students wrote responses to the questions or problems I posed. Some were hesitant for fear of being wrong until I reminded them that this is a risk-free assessment. I can't fix flawed thinking until I know where the broken parts are. In the end, students did a final survey to see what additional comments had been made to their initial statements and that served as some powerful reinforcement for them.