 Sponsored since 2001 by the Northern Nevada Writing Project -- http://nnwp.org |
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 WritingFix highly recommends these educational websites, all hosted by Northern Nevada Writing Project Consultants:  Dena Harrison's Website  Holly Young's Website Learning Is Messy Be sure to visit our sponsors: |
WritingFix: Our Writing Across the Curriculum Print Guide & Teacher Workshops "This [W.A.C.]inservice was the best class I've ever taken during my eleven years of teaching. I left each session with strategies I was eager to try the very next morning with my students. Thank you!" (S. Drake, Nevada teacher) This webpage's essential question: How can we deepen student thinking in all content areas through meaningful writing assignments?
In 2003, the Northern Nevada Writing Project--sponsors of this free-to-use on-line resource--began a new focus for WritingFix website: Writing Across the Curriculum (W.A.C.). In doing so, we extended a WritingFix invitation to those teachers who don't consider themselves to be language arts or writing instructors. Our first step in this new W.A.C. focus was to publish a print resource that we could use at any workshops or inservice classes we sponsored. In 2004, under the leadership of NNWP Director Corbett Harrison, we published and began distributing our Writing Across the Curriculum Guide (pictured at right). During dozens of workshops and inservice classes, this print guide was distributed to over a thousand Nevada teachers between 2004 and 2008. It was also sold outside of Nevada to teachers through the NNWP's Publications Page. In 2008, we stopped publishing our 2004 print guide because a new W.A.C. resource had been created by incoming NNWP Director Carol Gebhardt: The Going Deep with Compare & Contrast Thinking Guide. Inspired by the research of Robert Marzano, Carol's new W.A.C. resource challenged teachers from all content areas to do two things: 1) utilize more comparative thinking as a pre-writing technique and 2) write about similarities and differences that can be explored in every content. Carol's new guide became the workbook used in all our Writing Across the Curriculum workshops and inservice classes since 2008. The Going Deep with Compare & Contrast Thinking Guide has become such a popular tool among our Nevada educators that it in 2009 it became its own webpage at WritingFix, which you can access by clicking here. In addition, we explore two other "sister sites" to WritingFix during our popular W.A.C. workshops in Nevada: 1) HistoryFix (launched by NNWP Consultant Denise Boswell in 2007), which shows how "mentor texts" can be used to inspire writing across the curriculum in social studies curriculum and 2) our Summarizing Across the Curriculum Page, which contains projects and ideas from many NNWP TCs. Over the summer of 2009, we will be developing two more "sister sites" to use in our W.A.C. workshops: 1) NumberFix (launched by NNWP Consultant Holly Young) and 2) ScienceFix (launched by NNWP Consultant Yvette Deighton). On this page at WritingFix, we share access to resources from our first W.A.C. Guide, as well as links to the other Writing Across the Curriculum webpages we visit during our inservice classes for teachers. |
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Modules from the 2004-2008 W.A.C. Guide: |
More On-line Resources Explored during our WAC Workshops: |
In December 2008, the Writing Across the Curriculum Guide was officially "retired," which means it will no longer be printed. Our plan here at WritingFix is to--by June 2009--transform each of the five modules into its own webpage, which will be accessed from this homepage. While most of the lessons and resources from our original W.A.C. Guide will soon be featured on-line, not all will be. If you would like to obtain a copy of this soon-to-be unavailable print guide, be sure to visit the NNWP's Publications Page before we have sold our final copies. Just below, you will find links to the five webpages created to honor the five original modules from the NNWP's Writing Across the Curriculum Guide: |
The Going Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking Guide is designed to show teachers and students ways to use comparative thinking to explore topics with more depth. Inspired by the research of Robert Marzano, this guide was created through the innovative work of a dozen Northern Nevada teachers who spent a year exploring ways to go "Beyond the Venn" with their students. This 146-page guide (available for purchase at the NNWP Publications Page) contains dozens and dozens of lessons and resources that will make any teacher appreciate the depth that comparison and contrast can lead them to. While the print guide was being created, so too was WritingFix's Comparison and Contrast Thinking Homepage. About 25% of the 146-page guide can be freely accessed at this homepage. We invite you to use the resources we created and posted there. Click here to access WritingFix's Comparison and Contrast Homepage. |
Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #1:
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An "Exit Ticket" is a short written response that is completed individually by students at the end of learning. As students exit the class or the lesson, they hand in an exit ticket, which demonstrates their individual levels of understanding of a piece of classroom content. Exit tickets can become very effective gauges of students' learning, and they can help increase your students' ability to communicate succinctly while organizing their thoughts about your classroom content. Click here to access WritingFix's Exit Ticket Homepage. |
In our class, participants explore the book, plan for using several of its lessons, then propose their own original idea for a Wacky We-Search Report. With Barry's blessing, we have been posting our teachers' original ideas at our Summarizing Across the Curriculum Homepage. |
Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #2:
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We observe a lot of note-taking sessions in history, science, health, and math classes. Having students copy notes is not considered a strategy for writing across the curriculum. Having students compose reactions and responses to class notes is. Module 2 of our Writing Across the Curriculum Guide explores innovative ways to prompt student reactions and responses to classroom content. Click here to access WritingFix's Note-taking Homepage. |
Check out what we have so far. Check back with us and watch this new site grow and develop. Click here to check-out HistoryFix. |
Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #3:
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Students usually want classroom questions to be easy. Great learning can happen, however, when the questions push the learner deeper into Bloom's taxonomy. The third module of our Writing Across the Curriculum Guide explores ways to teach students to write higher-level questions, then to use those questions to prompt fellow students to write. The Students as Question Writers Homepage at WritingFix is currently under construction. We guesstimate it will be up by December 2009. |
Check out what we have so far. Check back with us and watch this new site grow and develop between June and December of 2009! Click here to check-out ScienceFix. |
Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #4:
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Copying and pasting information from the Internet, an encyclopedia, or from classroom notes is not a strategy for Writing Across the Curriculum. Teaching students to summarize ideas into their own words is. The fourth module from our Writing Across the Curriculum Guide is always a popular one with teachers who struggle to find new ways to keep students from simply copying or regurgitating information. Click here to access WritingFix's Summarizing Homepage. |
Click here to check-out NumberFix.
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Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #5:
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WritingFix's R.A.F.T. Homepage
Our fifth module from the Writing Across the Curriculum Guide shows teachers how to design excellent R.A.F.T. prompts, to teach students how to design R.A.F.T. prompts for each other, and it shows what other kinds of projects students can work on once they are familiar with the R.A.F.T. concept. Click here to access WritingFix's R.A.F.T. Homepage. |
Click here to check-out iPods Across the Curriculum. Click the link below to access this project's homepage, where the lessons are posted! |
In January 2008, the NNWP published a sequel to its very popular Writing Across the Curriculum Guide.
A R.A.F.T. writing prompt assigns students a role to write from (other than their own) and an audience to write to (other than the teacher). Students must think deeper by adding perspective to their researched ideas, which makes them take a R.A.F.T. writing prompt much more seriously than they might a normal essay prompt. 
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