What Do I Know Now?

During practicum I found that when students were given no parameters for writing, a lot of them tended to struggle. Simply writing, "free-write" on the board did not allow some students enough structure for them to be able to make the most of the assignment. They spent most of their time trying to come up with something to say. As a result, I think "Writing Across the Curriculum" is a great way to give students some guidelines, while still allowing them to develop their writing skills creatively. I understand now that Writing is a subject which spans all subjects and should not be limited to a Literacy block. Peterson suggests this quite explicitly herself in the subtitle of the book --"Because all teachers teach writing".

I found her strategies and mini-lessons particularly useful. Most of the lesson ideas would not take a lot of time (no more than one period), and could be incorporated into the Literacy time period, or the content-area subjects. As a P/J teacher, I would have the flexibility to incorporate my Literacy block into my content-area subjects as necessary. Doing so would provide for optimum use of time, while allowing students to build on multiple skills in an organic manner.