Chapter 12 – Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum

Learning Tools

Learning Tools – Reading and writing are learning tools because reading has a powerful impact on writing and vice versa. When students read about a topic first, their writing is enhanced and similarly if they write about an idea from a book they’re reading, their comprehension is deepened.  Below are many examples of these learning tools.  

Trade Books – A published book that isn’t a textbook. These are the types of books that are found in bookstores and libraries.  They are high-quality picture books and chapter books used by teachers during thematic units. These books keep readers interested, are relevant, and help students by making a connection to their own lives.

Text Sets – A collection of sets of books, magazines, and other reading materials on topics to use in teaching thematic units.  They are carefully chosen and include many different genres, a range of reading levels, and multimedia resources that present a variety of perspectives.  Some examples teachers collect and use are:

Mentor Texts – These are the stories, nonfiction books, and poems teachers use and students are familiar with to model the writer’s craft.  Teachers read and/reread these texts and point out specific features, and then student imitate the feature in their own compositions. 

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Writing to Learn

Learning Logs – A journal students use to record and react to what they’re learning in social studies, science, or other content areas.  Students take notes, write descriptions, and make graphic organizers in learning logs and they are a “place to think on paper”. 

Double–Entry Journals – These are journals that are divided into two parts with different types of information in each one.  For example, one side might have important facts and the other might contain their thoughts or opinions. 

Quick Writing – Students write on a topic for 5 to 10 minutes while letting their thoughts flow without focusing on their mechanics or revisions. The purpose of this is to activate students’ background knowledge at the beginning of a thematic unit.

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Demonstrating Learning

Demonstrating Learning – There are four ways students demonstrate learning:

1. Writing reports: Best known type of demonstration of learning. Students write and make posters, All About…books, Alphabet Books, Class Collaborations, and Individual reports. 
2. Developing Essays – Students write essays to explain, analyze, and persuade.
3. Crafting Poems: Students often make poems as projects after reading books to demonstrate content area learning as part of thematic units. They create “I am …poems”, Two Voice poems, and Found poems.
4. Constructing Multi-genre Projects: Students explore a science or social studies topic through several genres in a multi-genre project.  They create blogs, post cards, timelines, songs, riddles, and word sorts.

Collaborative Books – Students work together in small groups to make collaborative books. They each contribute one page or work with classmates to write a page or section of the book using the writing process to craft and edit their pages. 

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Content Area Textbooks

There are 5 stages of the reading process and teachers use a variety of activities during each stage to make content area textbooks more friendly and to improve comprehension. 

Stage 1: Prereading – Teachers prepare students to read the chapter and nurture their interest in the topic in these ways:

• Activate and build students’ background knowledge about the topic
• Introduce big ideas and technical words
• Set purposes for reading
• Preview the text

Anticipation Guides – Teachers will introduce a set of statements on the topic of the chapter, the students will either agree or disagree with each statement, and then the students will read the assignment to see if they were right. 

They also use activities like KWL charts, anticipation guides, exclusion brainstorming, prereading plan, word wall, possible sentences, and question-answer relationships.

Prereading Plan – Teachers introduce the big ideas in the chapter when they create a prereading plan in which they present an idea discussed in the chapter and then have students brainstorm words and ideas related to it. 

Question-Answer-Relationships – Sometimes students will turn to the main headings into questions and prepare to read to find the answers to the questions or to check the questions at the end of the chapter to determine the Questions-Answer-Relationships. 

Stage 2: Reading – Teachers support students as they read the textbook chapter in these ways:

• Ensure that students can read the assignment
• Assist students in identifying the big ideas
• Help students organize ideas and details

Stage 3: Responding – Teachers help students develop and refine their comprehension in this stage as they think, talk, and write about the information they’ve read in these ways: They…

• clarify students’ misunderstandings
• help students summarize the big ideas
• make connections to students’ lives

A few popular techniques teachers use are the think-pair-share, quick writes, and double-entry journals.

Stage 4: Exploring – Teachers ask students to dig into the text during the exploring stage to focus on vocabulary, examine the text, and analyze the big ideas in these ways:

• Have students study vocabulary words
• Review the big ideas in the chapter
• Help students to connect the big ideas and details. 

Word Sorts – A collection of words taken from the word wall that students, or teachers, will sort into two or more categories.

Semantic Feature Analysis – This is a chart teachers and students will create to help examine the characteristics of vocabulary words or content area concepts and to classify important information.

Stage 5: Applying – Teaches support students as they appl what they’ve learned by creating projects in these ways:

• Expand students’ knowledge about the topic
• Have students personalize their learning
• Expect students to share their knowledge

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Learning How to Study

SQ4R Study Strategy – A six-step technique in which students survey, questions, read, recite, relate, and review as the study a content area reading assignment. This strategy also incorporates a before, during, and after reading component as well as a recently revised and added “relate” step.

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Thematic Units

Thematic Units – Thematic Units are interdisciplinary units that integrate reading and writing with social studies, science, and other curricular areas.

How to Plan a Thematic Unit – There are 9 steps to developing a thematic unit:

1. Determine the focus and what standards you are teaching
2. Collect a text set
3. Coordinate textbook readings
4. Locate digital and multimedia materials
5. Plan instructional activities
6. Identify minilesson topics
7. Plan ways to differentiate instruction
8. Brainstorm possible projects
9. Plan for assessment

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Alternative Assessments – Teachers monitor English learners’ progress using a combination of observations and question asking.  Many times it is more productive to interact with these students about the activities they are involved in to get a better assessment of their learning progress.  Other assessments teachers can do for English learners involve making drawings or graphic organizers instead of writing essays, they can conference and talk with their teacher about what they’ve learned.  Instead of giving tests with written answers, teachers can have ELs give answers orally. 

Classroom Application – One of the best tid bits from this chapter involved the demonstration of learning.  I really like how the book details the many ways teachers can have students demonstrate the information they’ve learned instead of simply giving tests.  Some students do not perform well on tests or may have test anxiety and giving students the option to show that they’ve actually learned the material in different ways is a great idea.  By having students great a diagram, poster, or presentation are fantastic ways for students to show what they’ve learned and can even help teach this information to other students.  These students also develop a better understanding of the information as well.  I also like how the book describes a few ways to make textbooks more interesting too. Simply reading the textbook doesn’t always help students understand the material and information.  But by activated and using active learning, students can better understand the information and produce greater results.