WritingFix: Writing Across the Curriculum

Writing Across the Curriculum: Our W.A.C. Print Guides & Teacher Inservice Workshops
sharing resources from our Northern Nevada workshops and print resources

"This [W.A.C.] workshop 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!" (Samantha C., middle school teacher)

"This [workshop] was such a breath of fresh air in a very stifling data/test-driven teaching environment! Thank you!" (Barbara S., elementary teacher)

In Northern Nevada, we host great workshops for teachers! Each year, our Northern Nevada Writing Project--proud sponsors of the WritingFix website--host dozens of workshops for Northern Nevada teachers. One of our most popular and long-running workshops is our sixteen-hour Writing Across the Curriculum Workshop, which is offered twice annually. On this page, you can find direct links to most of the resources used during this class, as well as direct access to some of our new Writing Across the Curriculum teacher workshops we've developed over the year.

Interested in local NNWP inservice opportunities? Check out their Fall & Spring on-line schedules.

Interested in bringing this workshop to your state or district? NNWP Consultant and W.A.C. Coordinator, Corbett Harrison, offers this workshop over the summer months from his personal website.

Our W.A.C. workshops' driving essential question: How can we deepen student thinking in all content areas through meaningful and authentic writing assignments?

Thank you for your interest in our Northern Nevada inservice workshop for teachers. Welcome to our page of on-line resources for the Northern Nevada Writing Project's highly popular Writing Across the Curriculum (W.A.C.) inservice classes for teachers. Each year, the NNWP sponsors numerous teacher workshops that focus on W.A.C. Even if you are not in Northern Nevada and cannot enroll in our workshops, we believe you will find the information presented on this page useful, especially if you believe that students who write about content will think deeper about content.

All of our inservice classes are designed to be "make and take" workshops. In our class, presenters from the NNWP will "wow" you with exciting lessons from their own classrooms. At the end of the class, you will be given time to write-up a lesson proposal that was inspired by the philosophies of the teachers who presented to you. The proposal you create should be one that you plan to actually use with your own students. The very best lesson proposals we receive might even become part of our WritingFix website.

In 2003, the Northern Nevada Writing Project 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.

During our class, you will be exploring any or all of the following on-line collections, which have been created over the years by NNWP Consultants and participants of the classes they offer. At each of these specific on-line collections, in each page's introduction, you will find a proposal form for the lessons. This is the proposal form that will be used on the last night of class:

WritingFix's Summarizing Across the Curriculum Homepage Plagiarism is bad--obviously--but a lot of our students don't know how to write it "in their own words." This on-line collection shares resources on this topic. Much of the work on this page is inspired by Barry Lane's 51 Wacky We-Search Reports
WritingFix's Comparing & Contrasting Across the Curriculum Homepage According to Robert Marzano's synthesis of research, students who do more comparison and contrast thinking score better on standardized assessments. Hosted by NNWP Consultant Carol Gebhardt, this collection of resources show what effective comparison & contrast looks like in a writing lesson.
WritingFix's iPods Across the Curriculum Homepage If music can soothe the savage beast, might it also inspire the reluctant writer? NNWP Consultant Rob Stone hosts this collection of lessons inspired by music, video and pod-casts from a classroom iPod.
The HistoryFix Homepage The best writing lessons often inspire student writers with a published "mentor text," which is used to excite students about an idea, or to show students what quality writing looks like. NNWP Consultant Denise Boswell shares lessons that use social studies "mentor texts" at this on-line collection.
The NumberFix Homepage The best writing lessons often inspire student writers with a published "mentor text," which is used to excite students about an idea, or to show students what quality writing looks like. NNWP Consultant Holly Young shares lessons that use mathematical "mentor texts" at this on-line collection.
The ScienceFix Homepage The best writing lessons often inspire student writers with a published "mentor text," which is used to excite students about an idea, or to show students what quality writing looks like. NNWP Consultant Yvette Deighton shares lessons that use science-inspired "mentor texts" at this on-line collection.
WritingFix's Exit Tickets Across the Curriculum Homepage Not all writing across the curriculum needs to be a "report" or a "story." To build fluency, students should be asked to write short responses weekly. An exit ticket is a student- and teacher-friendly way to build fluency while gathering good formative data on one's students.
WritingFix's Alphabet Books Across the Curriculum Homepage Our new writing across the curriculum collection inspired by the many alphabet books that are published. NNWP Consultant Karen McGee shows off some of her most successful lessons.
Persuasive Writing Across the Curriculum A brand new resource collection that focus on the power of a students' voice in writing assignments that challenges our students to persuade in all curriculum areas.
Note-taking & Notemaking Across the Curriculum Coming for 2011! This new collection will celebrate the power of thinking deeply while taking or examing notes in all curriculum areas.

We're glad you have found this page at WritingFix and are interested in learning to better use writing in all curriculum areas. Below, find quick links to our Writing Across the Curriculum projects in Northern Nevada.

Mentor Text Lesson Collections for History, Math, and Science
three "sister sites" explored during our WAC Workshop

NNWP Consultant Denise Boswell hosts this growing lesson collection for social studies and history curriculum. Click here.

NNWP Consultant Holly Young hosts this growing lesson collection for math curriculum. Click here.

NNWP Consultant Yvette Deighton hosts this growing lesson collection for science curriculum. Click here.

Back to the top of the page

Comparing & Contrasting Across the Curriculum a presentation at out W.A.C. Workshop	Modules from the 2005 W.A.C. Guide: from our out-of-print, original Writing Across the Curriculum Guide
NNWP Consultant Carol Gebhardt is our Northern Nevada "go to" person when discussing effective comparative thinking in the writing classroom. When Carol's Going Deep with Compare & Contrast Thinking Guide was published in 2008, we set up a companion page at WritingFix, which features a number of free resources from this 146-page print guide. In addition, lessons by teachers who have been inspired by Carol's guide are posted here too. Click here to access this on-line W.A.C. resource.	In 2009, we stopped publishing our popular Writing Across the Curriculum Guide to make room for the new guides we were publishing. Below, find approximately 50% of the guide that we have posted for all teachers to use. If you'd like to purchase one of the very last copies of this print guide, visit our NNWP's Publications Page for details. Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #1: Exit Tickets Across the Curriculum WritingFix's Exit Ticket Homepage 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. Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #2: Note-Taking and Note-Making WritingFix's Note-Taking Homepage 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. Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #3: Students Writing High-Quality Questions Students as Question Writers Homepage (under construction) 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 February 2011. Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #4: Summarizing (instead of plagiarizing) *WritingFix's Summarizing Across the Curriculum* Resources 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. Writing Across the Curriculum, Module #5: R.A.F.T.s Across the Curriculum WritingFix's R.A.F.T. Homepage 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. 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.
"Wacky We-Search" Across the Curriculum a presentation at out W.A.C. Workshop
Author Barry Lane has been a good friend to Northern Nevada teachers! Over the years, we've given out hundreds of copies of Barry's 51 Wacky We-Search Reports to Northern Nevada teachers who've taken our Writing Across the Curriculum workshops. In 2008, we began challenging teachers to create original Wacky We-Search Reports for their students. Click here to see our growing collection of original Nevada assignments.
iPods Across the Curriculum a new W.A.C. Workshop developed by NNWP Consultants
In 2008, *WritingFix's iPods Across the Curriculum* Project brought together 80 teachers from across Northern Nevada, representing all the different content areas. Each teacher received an iPod Classic for their classroom in exchange for writing up a writing across the curriculum lesson that we could post at WritingFix. Starting in 2009, the iPods Across the Curriculum class will be offered twice annually to Northern Nevada teachers by NNWP Consultant Rob Stone. Click here** to check-out iPods Across the Curriculum Homepage and see the lessons that have been posted by Nevada teachers.
Alphabet Books Across the Curriculum a new W.A.C. Workshop developed by NNWP Consultants
NNWP Consultant Karen McGee, who has always had a passion for alphabet books, began this Writing Across the Curriculum resource page over the summer of 2009. Look for new WAC lessons and ideas to be posted throughout the 2010-2011 school year. Click here to visit this under-development page at WritingFix.
Persuasive Writing Across the Curriculum a new W.A.C. Workshop developed by NNWP Consultants
Coming for 2010! Our newest W.A.C. focus will be on persuasive writing in all curriculum areas. We've secured a grant to purchase 50 copies of Barry Lane and Gretchen Bernabei's Why We Must Run with Scissors, and teachers who enroll in course will receive a copy as well as propose an idea for a persuasive writing lesson to be used in any content but language arts. Lessons will be posted at this new page, which should make its debut in February 2010. Check back with us soon!

More W.A.C. ideas are currently being brainstormed to be posted in this space!