WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NORTH CAROLINA Department of Public Instruction | State Board of Education Division of Instructional Services
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER HANDBOOK
WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM IN HIGH SCHOOL
INTRODUCTION TEACHER’S TOOLBOX
INCORPORATING WRITING INTO THE CONTENT AREA CLASSROOM SUPPORTING STUDENT WRITERS THROUGH CONFERENCING DEVELOPING FOCUS AND PURPOSE IN WRITING ORGANIZING WRITING USING SUPPORT AND ELABORATION EFFECTIVELY DEALING WITH ISSUES OF STYLE AND AUDIENCE FOCUSING ON LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS
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14 33 40 43 47 52 58
ASSESSMENT
C O N T E N T S
61 77 97 102
SCENARIOS RESOURCES REFERENCES
T A B L E
O F
INTRODUCTION
WRITING IS EXCITING BECAUSE IT’S PRODUCTIVE AND CREATIVE; IT’S WHERE THE RUBBER HITS THE ROAD. YOU CAN’T WRITE AND NOT THINK. THERE ARE NO CLIFF NOTES FOR WRITING. WRITTEN EXPRESSION IS ONE OF OUR PRIMARY MEANS OF REFLECTING ON WHAT WE THINK AND WHAT WE KNOW. – JIM BURKE, teacher and author
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riting has become a valuable tool in the high school classroom for engaging students in thinking, showing understanding, creating, communicating, and learning. Over the past ten years writing across the curriculum programs have become increasingly common in colleges and universities as well as in secondary schools. Why the move toward using writing in content area classrooms? As Scarborough (2001) points out, research suggests that writing supports increasingly complex thinking about subjects that students are learning (Langer & Applebee, 1987) and that it has been shown to improve the learning of content (Maxwell, 1996). Traditionally, however, writing has primarily been a tool for demonstrating learning (literary analysis of the theme of Hamlet, essay question about World War I, summary of a chapter in a science textbook, instructions about how to prepare a meal, or a biographical essay about Dali). It has only been in the past thirty years that in schools we have come to see the power of writing for personal expression, writing as a tool for thinking, and writing to discover. When we blend two purposes for writing, writing to demonstrate learning with writing to help facilitate learning, we open the content area classroom to the many ways diverse writing can benefit both students and teachers. This handbook is designed to support teachers of all content areas as they incorporate writing into their classes in ways that facilitate teaching of course content, encourage students to develop as writers, align with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, and use writing as a tool for thinking. Divided into sections, the handbook provides explanation and examples of writing instruction grounded in current research and best practice.

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