Oregon Writing Project

June 27, 2001

Book Report #1

Gladys Campbell

Formative Writing: Writing to Assist Learning In All Subject Areas

By Virginia Draper

University of California, Berkeley

Bay Area Writing Project

I initially chose this piece, because it said, "In All Subject Areas". I teach Spanish as a second language to English speakers. I was hoping to be enlightened about creative approaches to incorporating writing in my lessons. I really want to develop that part of my teaching repertoire.

The author focused mostly on why we should teach writing in other subject areas and the steps to good writing. She did not give examples of specific activities to be used in classes. She shared mostly about the prewriting process. I currently pretty much just say to my students, "Here is the topic. Write, due tomorrow", or later in the week. If I leave with anything from the Oregon Writing Project class, it will be ways to prepare students to write. In the reading it specifically said, "Teachers do not give much attention to them [pre-writing and formulation stages], but they are essential to good writing." I agree with the author.

We, as teachers, are often told to include more writing exercises in our lessons. We respond by assigning homework, grading it and turning in our examples of how much more our students are writing in class. What are needed are writings that include preparatory steps up to the final copy. I do not recall that ever being part of the dictate from our administration. It is not as easy to turn in the preparatory steps as well as the finished product, but that would be a better way to describe the process needed for students to improve their writing skills.