Examples of Writing-to-Learn Strategies

The Believing Game and the Doubting Game: This writing activity simply calls for
students to write briefly
 first, in support of an idea, concept, methodology, thesis, etc.;
 second, in opposition to it.
Students become more adept at understanding the complexity of issues and arguments
when they are required to consider both sides.

Yesterday’s News: Students spend five minutes at the beginning of class writing a note
to a student (real or fictional) who missed the previous class. In their note, students
explain how one idea from that class (they can select which concept or point to discuss) is
particularly important to their lives.

One-liners: At the beginning of class, have students write down, in one sentence, the
importance or relevance of something they learned in the previous lesson. Award the
writer of the most succinct, accurate, thought-provoking one-liner extra credit.

A Rose by Any Other Name: Creating analogies is a powerful learning tool because it
requires students to use complex reasoning skills. At the beginning of class, have
students brainstorm a list of terms, concepts, or ideas from the current unit. Write these
on the board, and label that list “A”. Next, write another list of your own choosing
consisting of five or six items students enjoy. Label that list “B”. For example, you
might list popular video games, professional sports teams, or rock groups. Explain what
an analogy is and tell the students they are going to write an analogy that identifies the
ways in which one of the topics from list “A” is similar to one of the items on list “B”.
For example, students may have identified the concept of rational numbers for list “A”.
If list “B” included the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, Denver Broncos, and Miami
Dolphins, students would select one of those teams—the Broncos, for example—and
write an analogy comparing the attributes of rational numbers to certain characteristics of
the Broncos. Once students understand the writing task, give them a few minutes to
select an item from list “A” to compare to one item from list “B”. Then tell students they
have five minutes to write their analogies.

Crystal Ball: Stop the lesson at the key juncture, and have students predict in writing
what they think will happen next. (This is especially effective with topics that involve a
cause and effect relationship or with narrative text.)

Fast Food for Thought: After explaining a particular concept, process, or vocabulary
term, have students write a question they still have about that topic. Then have students
exchange papers and either answer the writer’s question or suggest resources they could
use to locate the answer.

The Last Word: Students spend the last ten minutes of class writing you a letter about
something they do not understand or need help with in the current unit. In addition to

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revealing to students what they do not know, this writing task can inform you about what
needs to be reviewed or clarified during the next lesson.

Exit Slips: Exit slips are brief student responses to learning experiences written before
leaving class. Students might state two things they have learned, two questions they have
or one of each. Students should hand in the slips before leaving class. Teachers review
them to determine instructional relevance and guide the next lesson.

Admit Slips: Admit slips are similar to exit slips, but students give them to their teacher
at the beginning of class. They may reflect students’ experiences with homework
assignments from the previous night or responses to a prompt. Teachers collect and
respond to these at the beginning of class to clarify homework issues and set up the
lesson for the day.

$ 2.00 Limit: After a lesson/unit of study, have students reflect on what they learned
using this strategy. The catch is that they must use no more than $2.00 worth of words!
Words are valued at 5 cents each with the exception of the article adjectives a, an, and
the, which are free. Students should restrict “spending” to the $ 2.00 amount as closely
as possible without exceeding the limit.

Learning Logs: At the end (or at a key juncture) of a lecture, discussion, or activity,
have the students stop to write about what they did, what they learned, and what
questions they still have about the topic. This type of writing can help them prepare for
exams and papers because they are using writing to discover and clarify ideas. They may
uncover what they still don’t know or understand as they try to articulate what they know.
Learning logs require that the students or teacher select a purpose for writing. Below are
some possible prompts learning logs:

1. What do I now know about this topic that I didn’t know before class? (recap)
2. By taking today’s test, I learned…(recap)
3. What questions did I have that were answered today? (feels confident about
the content)
4. How would I explain to someone else how to do what I learned to do today?
(feels confident about the content)
5. What confuses me about this topic? (needs clarification)
6. The most important idea I got from the discussion was ____and I can use it
to_____. (inspired)
7. I can relate what I learned today and what I learned in another class by…
(apply learning)
8. How did I work with my group today? How can I improve for next time?
(examine group processes)

Cornell Notes: Two column notes used for mastering information. In the right column,
students should take notes as they normally would or as you instruct. After class, they
should refine their notes by writing questions in the left column about the information on
the right. The left column can also be used for recall cues. The bottom of the page should

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be reserved for a reflective summary of the set of notes, taken at the end of the
lecture/discussion/activity or at a key juncture.

Quick Writes: These can be used at anytime during the learning process to stimulate
ideas (bell ringer) or to summarize what was learned (exit slip). Often, these resemble a
journal. Students write for five or 10 minutes in class on a topic that will help them focus
on the subject to be discussed that day. Topics for such timed writings can include a
question to answer on the assigned reading or the previous day's lecture, a term to define
from the reading, an issue to respond to, or a concept to explain.

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Brainstorming: Brainstorming is frequently an oral strategy. Adding a written
component, such as jotting down ideas that arise through brainstorming, will reinforce the
concepts being generated. Brainstorming may then be taken an additional step: students
can group the ideas and label each group as they move toward reaching a topic for a
paper.

Peer response: Peer response affords students opportunities to receive feedback on their
work while learning how to give constructive criticism themselves. If students prepare to
give an oral critique by first using writing--either jotted responses to questions or a brief
writing--they are likely to be better able to focus their comments and more willing to
participate in discussion.

Informal short writings: Informal short writings effectively focus a class on a particular
topic, help students summarize class work, or cause students to discover where their
reasoning breaks down. Students respond to a question or to a prompt from the instructor.
Many of these writings need not be graded; instead, the material from them can be used
in class discussion.

Journals: Journals provide unique opportunities for students to have a structured way to
work with course material. Journal entries may follow a single assignment made at the
beginning of the semester or may vary throughout the course by teacher and student
preferences. In some fields, journal keeping in the form of research logs, field notebooks,
artist notebooks, or laboratory logs provides opportunities for practicing professional
management skills.

Outlining: Outlining often creates anxiety for students. However, if they have the
opportunity to outline informally in order to focus on outline functions as well as
formally with a focus on form, they may come to value the process as both an
organizational tool and an important revision check on drafts.

Paraphrases: Paraphrases allow students to explain an argument in their own words,

following the line of reasoning and its sequence of ideas. The paraphrase, which is a
useful note taking tool, should give the reader an accurate understanding of the author's
position on the topic.

Summaries: Summaries restate only the author's main ideas, omitting all the examples
and evidence used in supporting and illustrating those points. The function of a summary
is to represent the scope and emphasis of a relatively large amount of material in an
efficient and concise form. A precis is a type of summarizing that insists on an exact
reproduction of the logic, organization, and emphasis of the original texts.

Disclaimer
This is not an exhaustive list of writing-to-learn strategies. If you use something in your
classroom that allows students to come to a greater understanding of the content as they
write, then use it and share it!

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Like most concepts in education, these listed strategies are also known by other names,
which is fine. When you map, just be sure you use the term “writing-to-learn.”

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