Power Writing in Content Areas

      As discussed in my earlier blog, Whose Job is it Anyway?  Teaching Content Area Literacy, all teachers are responsible for teaching students literacy.  It is not just the Language Arts teacher's job to teach students how to read and write.  Once students reach middle school, content area teachers need to be content area literacy teachers.  Content area teachers need to show students how to read and write to learn, and to read and write in a way that prepares them for college and the workforce.

 The Common Core State Standards have been developed to increase student literacy in the content areas.  There are specific standards for Grades 6-12 Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects.  For example in middle school students are expected to "Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content"  (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.1).  Content area teachers need to get their students to read and write content specific text, but how?

Content area teachers need some strategies in order to teach their students how to read and write in their disciplines.  One quick and easy strategy recommended by Fisher and Frey (2013) is Power Writing.  "Power Writing is a method for building writing fluency through brief, timed, writing events" (Fearn & Farnan, 2001).  The fact that the writings are brief (about one minute) means content area teachers can incorporate them into their lessons frequently without feeling they are sacrificing any precious class time.  Teachers can post a content area word or phrase on the board and ask students to use that in their one-minute timed writing.  Students should write as much as they can, as well as they can.  Quality should not be abandoned because of the time constraint. (Fisher and Frey, 2013).

Power Writing could be used in any content area
class.  For example in a 7th grade Earth Science class, students learn about the Rock-Cycle.  The teacher could write the word "weathering" on the board.  The students would then have one minute to write incorporating the word weathering.  When time is up, students are to count and record the number of words they have written.  Next students are to re-read what they have written and indicate any mistakes they find (spelling, grammar etc.).  The teacher would then repeat this process 2 more times throughout the lesson using words like "igneous rock" or "sediment."  Students should indicate the highest number of words written in one minute that day.  Repeated writing practice like this serves several purposes.  First, it improves writing fluency.  By tracking their word counts students will be motivated to increase number of words (Kasper-Ferguson and Moxley, 2002).  Second, students will be writing about content which means students will be thinking about content.  Students will need to understand the content in order to write about it.  Third, because students are writing about content, teachers can use Power Writings as a form of assessment.  In this example teachers can assess if students understand "weathering," "Igneous rock," and "sediment" within the Rock-Cycle.  Lastly, because students have highlighted their mistakes, teachers can look for patterns and target the most common errors.  Teachers can then create lessons to address those common errors (Fisher and Frey, 2013).Teachers can also look for errors that students do not even notice and create mini-lessons on those issues as well.  This would be a great opportunity for the Science teacher to link up with the Language Arts teacher for some cross curricular activities addressing popular student writing errors.

Power Writing is a great strategy to get a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to writing in content area classes.  It does not take a lot of time out of class because it is short.  Students have already self-corrected some mistakes and counted the number of words so, content area teachers do not need to spend hours every week grading long essays (the Language Arts Teacher's nightmare!).

Power Writing gives students an opportunity to self-assess as well.  It is difficult to write about something if you do not understand it.  Sometimes it takes putting pencil to paper to really know if you understand something. Fisher and Frey (2013) note that "We have had more than one student tell us, 'I didn't know what I thought until I wrote it down." Writing will help students organize their thinking.  Through Power Writing students will realize what they do know and what they do not know.  Their teachers will also have a quick way to see if students are grasping content. Both parties can use the Power Writing samples to adjust their learning and teaching.

References

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2013). A Range of Writing Across the Content Areas. Read Teach The  Reading Teacher, 67(2), 96-101.