Building a Writing Viking Community
Cross Curricular Collaborative Writing Teams
How to Build a Writing Community:
To accomplish this we will be forming Writing Communities and having cross content discussions focused on working as a team to truly integrate meaningful writing experiences. English Department members have been assigned to Science, Social Studies, Math, and Fine Art content areas. Having these individuals as team members will allow for open and deeper discussions in developing cross content writing integration.
What a Writing Community IS: The goal is for writing to become an aspect that is ingrained into each classroom at Northgate. No matter if a student is sitting in a Physical Science class, or if they are sitting in their American Literature class, the expectation for quality writing should be the same. Having Writing Communities across content areas will allow for development of:
-Common rubrics
-Common language between subject areas
-Integrated activities/lessons
-Collaborative conversations about writing and student expression in terms of grasping the standards.
-Plans for reinforcement of the importance of written expression throughout the school day.
What a Writing Community IS NOT: This focus is NOT meant to make every teacher include a daily lesson in grammar. It is NOT a plan for any department to add something extra to their plate. It is instead an opportunity to discuss and plan on how to incorporate writing purposefully into our lessons so that it is meaningful and allows our students to access the content on a deeper level.
Beginning Steps- Discussions March 9th
The goal of Collaborative Discussions March 9th is to have conversations about what role writing plays in your specific content area. Below are a few guiding questions:
-How can/how does writing benefit your subject area specifically?
-Where does writing naturally fit into my classroom?
-Where does writing not fit into my classroom?
-What are some examples of how we are using writing currently? How could the English Department possibly help us in taking the next step in quality writing?
-What needs/questions/concerns do we have as we look forward to having writing be more present/meaningful in each of our classrooms?
These discussions are important in that they will help lay the groundwork as we begin to look at plans for next year. Working together across our content areas we will be able to integrate writing in a deeper more purposeful manner and support our students in their critical thinking.
Writing and Critical Thinking
Here are a few resources reinforcing the connection between writing and developing student critical thinking:
Northgate Professional Learning
Email: ashley.wilkes@cowetaschools.net
Website: cowetaschools.net/nghs
Location: 3220 Fischer Road, Newnan, GA, USA
Phone: 7704635585
Twitter: @Northgate_High