Writing as a Way of Knowing (Strategies for Teaching and Learning Professional Library) [Paperback]

Lois Bridges (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1571100628 | ISBN-13: 978-1571100627 | Publication Date: January 1, 1997

Why do teachers use literature in their classrooms? What does literature add to children's lives and to the curriculum? Why is literature important at all? Kathy Short answers these and other questions in this introductory book on how to integrate literature into your curriculum.

Reading real books adds to the process of understanding and learning. Of course, teachers have always included real books in their classrooms, but now they are making them integral to the curriculum; however well constructed, basal programs cannot provide the variety and choice of reading materials that meet the equally wide range of students' interests and needs. Stories that are worth reading and that extend children's experiences and enrich their minds also motivate them to making reading part of their lives.

Kathy outlines the four roles literature plays in the curriculum:

• Literature is a way to learn language; not just reading, but writing, too.
• Literature enhances learning in content areas: social studies, sciences, mathematics, and the arts.
• Literature is one pathway to knowing and understanding the world.
• Literature opens up an awareness of society and culture.

Because literature should be part of a curriculum that provides a meaningful engagement with language, she shows you how to use real books to give children opportunities to learn. You will enjoy her practical suggestions for implementing a variety of teaching strategies so that children have opportunities to learn about language through:

• independent reading;
• reading aloud;
• partner reading and sharing;
• readers' theatre and choral reading;
• author studies;
• literature circles.

And you will be able to develop important reading strategies through mini-lessons, conferences, and shared and guided reading.

As an example of a curricular framework, Kathy explains the authoring cycle, which uses inquiry to involve students deeply in a theme or topic. She concludes with a discussion of evaluation as part of the curriculum and offers specific examples of evaluation techniques and samples of the appropriate forms.

As in the other volumes in this series, there are Dialogues that invite you to reflect on your own teaching, Shoptalks that provide brief reviews of relevant professional literature, and Teacher-To-Teacher Field Notes: comments by classroom teachers on their own successful teaching ideas.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Writing as a Way of Knowing will help you create a writer's workshop in your classroom and show you how to sustain it as you learn to support your students as effective writers across the curriculum.

You'll learn how to help your students discover the writing topics that matter to them and will sustain them over multiple drafts. Your goal as a writing teacher is to help your students become flexible writers who understand all that writing can do and how to use it to serve their own purposes.

Once you and your students are thinking like writers, you're ready for Chapter 3, How to Design and Run a Writer's Workshop, written by veteran teacher Greg Chapnik. Greg covers all the details: implementing effective mini-lessons, conducting thought-provoking writing conferences, handling revising, editing, and publishing, and beginning again with another writing topic of personal interest.

In the chapter called What Writers Need, Lois helps you give your students the instruction and response they need to write well. You can provide your students with everything that encourages brilliant writing: lots of practice, opportunities to share writing with a caring, responsive audience, and focused instruction from a skillful writing teacher. You'll also learn what constitutes effective writing and how to help your students understand and use these qualities in their own writing.

Of course, you must keep an eye on the skills: spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Lois explains the basics of how skills develop, how to teach them within the context of real writing, and how to help young writers monitor their use of conventional spelling, punctuation, and grammar. In this way, your students will discover why conventions are important and why they'll want their writing to reflect skillful use of conventions.

Writing as it applies throughout the curriculum is covered in a chapter on students as independent researchers, tracking down, sorting, and presenting data in a wide variety of formats. Using a four-step instructional strategy for introducing new genres, Lois explores journal writing, poetry, and other reasons to write.

By the time you've finished this book, you may echo the words of teacher Cynthia Bencal who said of her classroom writer's workshop, "My students own their own stories. They like to write. They are writers now and, best of all, they want to continue to be writers when they grow up."

About the Author

Lois Bridges is a consultant, teacher, editor, and writer specializing in teachers' professional development. Her teaching has ranged from multiage elementary classrooms to preservice college level at the University of California. Her books include Assessment: Continuous Learning (Stenhouse 1996), Creating Your Classroom Community (Stenhouse 1996), Writing as a Way of Knowing (Stenhouse 1997), Becoming a Whole Language School: The Fair Oaks Story (1989), and The Whole Language Catalog with Ken and Yetta Goodman (1991).

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571100628
• ISBN-13: 978-1571100627
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)