What's Inside?

12 Writing-to-Learn Activities
Writing Advice from Favorite Authors
Of Personal Importance: How Narration Drives Meaningful Writing

12 Writing-to-Learn Activities

No matter what subject you teach, writing can empower learning. And yet, fitting time-intensive writing assignments into your crowded curriculum may not seem feasible. Here's some good news. Research suggests you don’t need to design lengthy writing projects for your students to benefit from writing as a learning tool. Instead, short bursts of low-stakes writing hold the most learning potential.

Students improve retention and comprehension when they write regularly and reflectively about their learning—not only about what they learn but also the difficulties they face, the surprises they encounter, and the strategies they employ along the way.

You can deepen your students’ thinking across the curriculum by making writing a regular part of your classroom. Consider using any of the following writing-to-learn activities, or adapt them to fit the needs of your students. Each activity takes just 10-15 minutes to complete.

1. Learning Logs

A learning log is a journal for schoolwork. Students use learning logs to write their thoughts, feelings, and questions about the subjects they are studying. Writing in this way helps them connect new information to what they already know, reflect on their learning processes, and think through ideas that are unclear.

Note: Learning logs begin this list because students can incorporate almost all the other writing-to-learn activities in them.

View minilesson for Keeping a Learning Log.

2. Admit/Exit Slips

Students submit brief writings on “slips” to you before and after class. The slips can include questions, comments, observations, or reflections about the material being presented in class. Encourage students to write about ideas that they find confusing, interesting, upsetting, and so on.

Updated for 2018
Write for College Student Handbook

The fully updated Write for College is hot off the press! This comprehensive writing handbook prepares high-school juniors and seniors to write, read, study, speak, and learn in high school, college, and the workplace.

The handbook develops the writing rigor that colleges expect in argument essays, research reports, entrance essays, and much more. Students read dozens of high-interest models and use guidelines and checklists to create their own writing. They also learn strategies for testing well on Advanced Placement exams, college-entrance exams, and other high-stakes assessments.

A free online teacher's guide provides teaching suggestions, models, minilessons, topic ideas, digital downloads, and much more.

Take a closer look, or request a free review copy! (Any copy you receive is yours to keep.)

Writing Advice from Favorite Authors

“The first author I remember being obsessed by, actually realizing 'I like the way he writes and I like the way he tells stories,' was C.S. Lewis and the 'Narnia' books.”
—Neil Gaiman

Reading begets writing, and writing begets reading. Most writers can point to a specific book or author that first inspired their own work. With beloved authors, a little advice can go a long way. Share with your students these words of inspiration from well-known writers:

“The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing, and it will enlarge your vocabulary.”
—J. K. Rowling

“I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school but because my mother took me to the library. I wanted to become a writer so I could see my name in the card catalog.”
—Sandra Cisneros

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Complete K-12 Writing Program

Is your school or classroom looking for a student-centered writing program K-12? Explore our award-winning line of writing handbooks, all recently updated. Each handbook prepares students for 21st-century writing and communication through standards-based guidelines, models, checklists, tips, and much more.

Write for College (Grades 11-12)
Write Ahead (9-10)
Write on Course 20-20 (6-8)
All Write (6-8, ELL)
Writers Express (4–5)
Write on Track (3)
Write Away (2)
Write One (1st grade)
The Writing Spot (Kindergarten)

Free online teacher's guides supplement instruction for each book, while SkillsBooks provide leveled practice with punctuation, mechanics, spelling, usage, and grammar.

Request a free review copy of any resource. Any book you receive is yours to keep, no strings attached.

Of Personal Importance: How Narration Drives Meaningful Writing

“The narrative is the first story, the primal story, from which all others come. It is your story.” These thoughts by writer John Rouse speak clearly to the importance of narrative writing. I share them because I, too, feel that narrative writing is a valuable or, dare I say, the most important element in an effective writing program.

I know the common refrain from teachers: I can’t worry about narrative writing; that’s just storytelling. I have enough trouble covering the academic forms (explanatory, persuasive, responses to literature, etc.) students will be tested on.

Narrative writing offers too much to be treated like a stray dog. The primary purpose in anyone’s life is to make sense of experiences as they come to him or her: What was that conversation all about? Should I try out for the track team? Would I like to be a nurse? And what better way for someone to explore these experiences than to write about them? The linear nature of writing—recording one word after another—prompts reflecting and forming new understandings.

The Results Are In
In Focus Boosts Social-Emotional Learning In Just 10 Minutes a Day

Do you want to help your students improve their focus, impulse control, conflict- resolution skills, self-esteem, and teamwork skills? Try the simple daily activities (10-15 minutes) from the In Focus series (K-2, 3-5, and 6-8).

Schools that use In Focus experience growth in . . .