You've discovered my page of materials for one of my favorite training topics: Writing Across the Curriculum

I am a licensed language arts and computer teacher. Many of my dearest friends and favorite colleagues are also teachers but don't teach language arts; instead, they are passionate about content from math, science, music, and social studies.

I'm saddened whenever I meet non-language arts teachers who don't feel that its their job to teach reading writing. I've been told, "That's your job as an English teacher, not mine" many times during my trainings. To me, this is dogma that comes from a traditional classroom teacher who's never been exposed to current research on literacy. Every teacher should be teaching some elements of literacy to their students.

Here's my dogma: I believe both reading and writing are tools that every teacher--no matter what content they teach--should take a degree of responsibility for, if they're indeed trying to build a classroom community of independent-thinkers and life-long learners. In traditional classrooms, I hear teachers asking their students to read text but they many aren't sharing reading strategies that would help their students make better sense of content.

I also overhear traditional teachers asking their students to write without giving them any more instruction than how many pages/paragraphs the writing needs to be. I believe every teacher can find ways to instruct their students to create writing that's both meaningful and useful to the learner.

I'm not being a defensive language arts teacher by saying these things. The teachers who know me know that in both my English and computer classrooms, I've made myself teach degrees of science, math, history, and music, even though I am not certified to teach that content. I've never complained about it once, because I see the value of thinking across our curriculum. Science content is, of course, presented differently by me than it would be by a full-time science teacher. Literacy skills in science class should look different than they would in my language arts room. But not teaching the strategies at all is bad just bad practice.

I am passionate that every teacher should be using writing as a thinking tool. In order for that to happen, writing strategies must be explicitly taught in every classroom. I host a number of writing across the curriculum teacher inservices in Nevada, and the purpose of these workshops is to help ALL teachers find--at least--one writing strategy they feel comfortable making part of their teachers' toolboxes.

On this page, I am currently assembling and posting materials I present during all of my WAC workshops.

W.A.C. Workshop:
Summarizing Across the Curriculum

W.A.C. Workshop:
Mentor Texts for Math, Science, and History

I. Workshop Introduction

Every teacher knows what it's like to receive a piece of writing from a student that feels--maybe not plagiarized--but certainly regurgitated.

In fourth grade, my teacher--Mr. Borilla (pictured at right)--assigned us a two-page report on a president of our choice. Two pages and an original picture...that was the assignment.

Mr. Borilla wheeled in a cart of encyclopedias from the school library and told us to write about what we learned while reading. Now, I was one of Mr. Borilla's best creative writers, but this type of writing baffled me; I didn't know how to do it. I ended up with a report of piecemealed, mostly copied sentences from the encyclopedia about Thomas Jefferson.

I am sure the only fact about Thomas Jefferson I learned during that two-week project in fourth grade was that T.J. was the first president who actually lived in what's now known as the modern day White House. Why is that the one fact? you may ask. Because that was what I thought about when I drew my one required picture for the report.

Basically, I ended up with two pages of copied writing that taught me nothing about my topic.

I got a B on that report. Mr. Borilla told me my handwriting should have been neater and that I might have used a ruler when drawing my picture of Mr. Jefferson watering tulips in front of his columned white house.

Mr. Borilla was the best teacher I ever had (click here to see my on-line dedication to him), but his president report-writing unit needed some serious work. Mr. Borilla did what a lot of teachers did back then, and still do (to some degree) today; he assigned writing without showing us how to do it skillfully.

Assigning a written product (like a report) without first teaching a writers skill (like putting research into your own words) is not a valuable writing across the curriculum lesson.

At this point in my workshop, I ask teachers to memory of a time when they were assigned to write a product but weren't taught to use a skill that would have been valuable to their learning and writing process.

II. Which student has learned the most about the content?

I hand out three pieces of writing at this point in my training. I have a fourth grader's paragraph about bats; I have a page from a fifth grader's report on Argentina; and I have a piece of writing about the Big Bang Theory from a sixth grader.

I ask the teachers, "Which student has learned the most about the content? Which student has learned the most about a skill of writing?"

There's always some debate about which student--Dante or Wittekin--has learned the most about content and writing. There's never a question about which student has learned the least about both. The fifth grade report (by Dena) is actually from my wife's fifth grade report, which always makes everyone laugh that I have it! To assure my participants this wasn't her best piece of writing, Dena makes me also show her 6th grade prize-winning poem, Summertime Magic.

I ask of these three example, "Which type of writing would you like to receive from your students?" This sets the stage for the rest of my workshop, whose goal is to show that writing across the curriculum assignments can be creative and useful.

III. Anything can be a writing across the curriculum assignment

I believe report-writing is important. Students absolutely do need to learn by writing formal reports in school, but the best writing across the curriculum lessons are much smaller than a formal report...and they can be very creative in nature.

Barry Lane's awesome book, 51 Wacky We-Search Reports: Face the Facts with Fun, taught me so much about adding fun to my W.A.C. assignments. Whenever possible, I try to apply for a grant and make sure that all the teachers who take my W.A.C. workshop earn a copy of Barry's book for their classrooms.

Barry's book taught me to think outside of the box when designing writing lessons. It had never occurred to me that a recipe could be a writing assignment...or a wanted poster...or a report card.

To prove that anything with writing on it can convey information and make a reader think, I have my teachers read "Ordeal by Cheque." I remember reading this unusual "short story" in college and had forgotten about it completely until I started using 51 Wacky We Search Reports; it's can be found in many places on-line. The teachers completely enjoy deciphering this story together.

Inevitably the teachers in my workshop ask, "So did the story ever get written down in a way so that we'd know what happened for sure?"

I love to say, "Sometimes school isn't about having the right answer; sometimes it's about having a good conversation that explores interesting possibilities." The word research is written as we-search on Barry's book for a reason.

One of my workshop participants--elementary teacher Kathy McCormick--saw so much possibility in the "Ordeal By Cheque" format, that she translated it into a writing assignment, which you can access by clicking here. Kathy designed the assignment to be an alternative to the traditional "What I did over summer vacation" assignment.

III. Exploring original Wacky We-Search lessons

Outside my cubicle hangs a poster that a colleague bought me when she learned that I was a huge fan of "The Simpsons." Each episode of the show, of course, begins with a scene of Bart writing (and re-writing) an "I will not..." statement on the chalkboard about a rule he has obviously broken at school. Each episode begins with a new "I will not..." statement. The poster is a huge collection of some of the funniest ones he's written over the years.

As I explored the idea that anything might become a writing assignment, I kept looking at this poster. An original idea hatched, and I found myself creating an original Wacky We-Search Report. Barry's book has fifty-one original ideas; I had created number fifty-two!

My Wacky I Will Not... Chalkboard assignment, which I now share with my workshop participants, can be accessed by clicking here. It comes complete with an example that I created based on this list of facts about giraffes.

Then I have teachers in my workshop work together to create I Will Not... Chalkboards based on this list of facts about jellyfish.

I inform my workshop participants that what I want them to do by the end of my workshop is create their own original Wacky We-Search Report to use with their students.

• I share with them the Wacky Box of Rocks assignment that was created by Joni Martindale, an elementary teacher who took this workshop.
• I share with them the Wacky Calendar assignment that was created by Temoca Dixon, a middle school teacher who took this workshop.
• I share with them the Wacky Game Show Idea that was created by Rob Stone, a high school teacher who took this workshop.

IV. Oral Summarizing to Improve Writing Across the Curriculum

I don't believe we teach our students to summarize as well as we could. Students regurgitate well, and I suspect many think that's what we want them to do when we say, "Write about what we've learned today."

At this point, we do an exercise in oral summarization. I pass out this list of facts about humpback whales. Participants read the list silently, then select five facts that they felt were the most interesting in the set of facts. I inform them they will have to return the list of facts to me and still have the ability to talk about the five facts they have chosen, so I give them a few minutes to try and madly memorize.

I take the facts away and I have them move and sit with a partner. They go back and forth using this sentence frame: "I thought ____________ was an interesting fact because __________."

Now they switch partners, and I have them use this sentence frame: "I was just partnered with __________ who thought _____________ was an interesting fact about whales because ___________."

We return to our original seats where they rate (from 1 to 5) their ability to talk intelligently about humpback whale facts without needing the original list.

Now, the tables draft and publish a group Wacky We-Search report from Barry's book. Their topic is the humpback whale, but I do not return the fact sheets; they must depend upon their oral summarization discussions (and their memories) to create a poster. For my workshop, I allow them to choose one of the following two formats: The Wacky Report Card (page __ of Barry's book) or The Wacky Wanted Poster (page __).

Here is an example report card. Click on image to enlarge.

I am working on getting an example wanted poster. Check back soon!

As part of most of my Writing Across the Curriculum Workshops, I feature a short discussion on the power of using a mentor text to inspire student writers.

A mentor text, by my definition, is a published piece of writing that is used some time during the writing process to inform and inspire student writers. In my Seven Elements of a Crafted Writing Lesson training, mentor texts are one of the seven elements that differentiate great writing lessons from ones that are simply good.

There are fantastic mentor texts for math, science, and history available, and we explore some of my favorite titles and talk about how these titles might inspire original writing across the curriculum from students.

Mentor Texts I use for Math Writing Lessons
12 Ways to Get to 11 by Eve Merriam	Math Curse by Jon Scieszka	A Very Improbable Story by Edward Einhorn

Mentor Texts I use for Science Writing Lessons
Science Verse by Jon Scieszka	Water Dance by Thomas Locker	The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer

Mentor Texts I use for History Writing Lessons
S is For Silver by Eleanor Coerr	Now & Ben by Gene Barretta	My Tour of Europe: by Teddy Roosevelt, Age 10 edited by Ellen Jackson

W.A.C. Workshop:
Persuasive Writing Across the Curriculum

This November, I am launching a new W.A.C. Workshop on persuasive writing. I am very excited about this course and this topic. I will be offering the course once this Fall and again in the Spring of 2010.

Participants will receive a copy of Barry Lane and Gretchen Bernabei's Why We Must Run With Scissors: Voice Lesson in Persuasive Writing, thanks to a grant I received.

Teachers will all adapt and teach a lesson from this book. Then, they will create an original writing across the curriculum lesson in the form of a R.A.F.T. writing assignment. The best lessons will become part of the WritingFix Persuasive Writing Homepage, which is being developed during the 2009-2010 school year.

Check back soon. Watch this section grow!