Literacy Tips and

Tricks
Practical Strategies for Fostering Literacy Across the Content Areas

Dont pass on using a Write-

Weve all had those class discussions. You know the onesthe ones where only three
students raise their hands to share their
insights while the rest of the class doodles
on their notebooks, finishes their homework
for the next class, or tries to sneak off a
text message to friends.
As teachers, we know the value of
having students share their opinions, their
insights, and their misunderstandings. We
want them to be prepared for active
citizenship in which they can speak their
minds and question each other.
Ultimately, in the words of Harvey
Daniels, Steven Zemelman, and Nancy
Steineke in Content-Area Writing,
American schools should graduate people who can raise hell when it is necessary and
possess the tools to do so. Thats why, despite the many drawbacks to whole-class
discussion, we continue to try to engage students in this type of dialogue.
Two techniques, the write-around and the silent discussion, are exceptionally
powerful writing-to-learn activities whose efficiency and student accountability make them
fabulous alternatives to whole-class discussions. In both, students write their own responses
to a topic, and then pass their papers to other students. Students then read and respond in
writing to the previous responses, thereby creating a string of conversation as the papers
circulate around the table. Unlike whole-class discussion, write-arounds and silent
discussions engage each student in conversation.
Two of the reasons that teachers choose not to incorporate more writing in their classes
The following pages, taken from Content-Area Writing, explain both of these processes in
are the amount of time it takes students to produce these works and the time it takes
detail.
teachers to provide written feedback.

But I dont have the time to have my

students write

And it is true that public writing is indeed writing that is substantial, planned,
conventional, drafted, edited, and heavily assessed. And these types of writing activities,
while important, are not the only way to get students writing.
Writing to learn is different that the more formal or public writing that we most often
think about in schoolterm papers, research reports, and critical essays. Instead, writing to

Write-Around
The following text is from Content-Area Writing by Daniels, Zemelman, and Steineke.

Strategy Overview:

Divide students into groups of four (groups of three or five

work as well). Each student signs his or her name or initials in
the left-hand margin of the paper, and then writes an initial
comment on the chosen topic. Students continue to write until
the teacher says pass.
Papers rotate (in the same direction each time) and the students
read the entries on the page and respond to them in writing
(being sure to write their name/initials in the margin as well) until
pass is called again. Students can explain their reaction, write
a comment, ask questions, share connections, agree or disagree,
or raise a whole new idea. This process is repeated until all
students in the group have read and commented on the
conversation strand on each paper. Students should use all of the
time provided by the teacher for writing (no finishing early and
goofing off) and should remain silent while passing.
The length of writing time provided for each commenting session
can vary, but usually the time is longer with each pass as
students have to read more writing each time. And while
teachers may tell students that they have two minutes to write
on the topic, the teacher should be walking around, monitoring
the student writing and adjusting time as necessary.
Once the paper is back to the person who wrote the original
comment, the original author reads through the entire writearound conversation. At this point, students usually want to
continue the written conversation aloud in a group. Give students
a couple of minutes to continue the conversation, using their
writings to help guide the discussion. The teacher may also want
students to discuss a more focused prompt or formulate an
answer to an essential question at this point in their small group
discussion.
Now that students have written and discussed in small groups,
have each group share out one highlight or thread of their
discussion. These might be things that they spent time on,
something that sparked lively debate, or something they argued
or laughed about.

What Can Go Wrong:

Unprepared Students. As long as every student has

shared the experience to be discussed (watched the video, heard
the lecture, did the reading, etc.), the strategy works well and is
face-paced. However, if students have not participated in the

experience, you will need to devise a plan for those students who
are unprepared. That can be accomplished by:
Holding them out of the write-around so they can
catch up on the work and so no group will be
saddled with a blank writer taking turns at their
table.
Let unprepared students participate in the writearound by sharing whatever they do know for
their first entry and then writing insightful and
intelligent questions about other students entries
when they receive them.
Penmanship. Bad penmanship can hurt a write-around as it
makes it difficult for others to read or respond. Encourage
students to write legibly before the write-around begins.
Slow Thinkers. Some students take a bit more processing time
than others. Explaining that students write at different rates and
that the expectation is that everyone write as much as they can
in the time that is given may help students be more
understanding of one person producing less or more writing than
others. Teachers might also try grouping by student writing
fluency so that those who need more time to write are not with
the verbose.

Variations:

Silent Discussion. After reading, viewing, or hearing about

subject matter, each student jots down two questions about it
that he or she has. These must be big fat questions that invite
interpretation, discussion or argument, not closed-ended, factual
recall questions. Students then pass their papers the same
direction (no grouping needed). The receiving student must pick
one of the two questions to comment on or answer and THEN
write down a new questioneither a brand-new one on the topic
or a follow-up to one of the two originals. Then students pass the
papers again. The receivers read and choose one of the
unanswered questions to respond to and add another new
question. This can be repeated three to five times before pulling
back for whole-class discussion.