This document provides an overview of various writing strategies and theories. It discusses that there is no single process that defines how all writers write, and that writing is thinking and learning to write comes through writing and reading. It emphasizes that writers need choice, time, models of good writing, and constructive feedback. Evaluation of writing should highlight strengths and areas for improvement. The document also discusses different types of knowledge related to writing like declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge. It provides examples of different writing practices and enabling constraints that can be used to teach writing while allowing flexibility.

1. Writing Strategies and Theories

2. Centre of GravityWhat strategies work to develop students’ writing and what theory underpins these ideas?

3. Student VoicesEnglish Journal 98.5 (2009): 41–42

4. Commonsense Matters (Linda Rief)writing is thinkingthere is no one process that defines the way all writers writewe learn to write by writing (and by reading)we have to do a lot of writing to accomplish the best writing (and develop a writing voice)writers need, and want, to write for real reasons for a real audiencelessons of craft and conventions are best taught within the context of a meaningful piece of writing

5. Commonsense Matters (Linda Rief)writers need choice, time, and models of good writingwriters need constructive response while engaged in the process of writing that moves the writing forward and helps the writer growevaluation of writing should highlight the strengths of process, content, and conventions and give the writer the tools and techniques to strengthen the weaknessesgood writing is not defined by one set of criteria but differs depending on the kind of writingwriters need places to collect their ideas e.g. writer’s notebooks, working folders, portfoliosteachers have to know their students well enough to recognize their distinct strengths, interests and needs

6. Ways of Knowingdeclarative: knowing about something, e.g., knowing that paragraphs usually focus on a central ideaprocedural:knowing how to do something, e.g., knowing how to develop a topic focus for a paragraphconditional:knowing when to do something, e.g. deciding if the topic sentence should be at the beginning or the end of a paragraph

7. A Place I Remember10 minute flow write

8. SmellSightTasteTouchHearingSensory Wheel

9. Choose a characterAn old woman whose detestable old husband has just died. Do not mention the husband or the death.A young boy who has a secret.A man or woman who has just fallen in love. Do not mention the loved one.An person who has just murdered someone. Do not mention the victim or the murder. (Adapted from The Art of Fiction by John Gardner)

10. Begin with the FamiliarWe bring our history of experiences to our learning situations.There must be some familiarity for us to begin to understand and make connections in our brains.Learning begins when that familiarity is troubled, challenged or revised. (The old adage “make the familiar strange” is a good way of remembering this.)

11. Enabling constraintsComplex learning events are not prescriptive (that is, don’t dictate what must be done) but are expansive (that is, they indicate what might be done, in part by indicating what must not be done; e.g. rules of hockey, the Ten Commandments)Enabling Constraints define a field, narrow the choices but offer wide opportunities for flexible and varied responses. (e.g. choose a character)

12. Non-EnablingBy the end of this lesson, students will demonstrate their understandings of some of the core elements of a poem by identifying the rhyme structure, the principal figurative devices, and the core themes of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” (too constraining, presumes correct responses and delineated techniques for reaching pre-specified ends)Students will write original poems in this lesson. (too open-ended; without more structure students are likely to be frustrated.)

13. why writing practices?it is not just to teach you how to write in different ways (although that is important)it is not just a recipe book of activities that you can copy in your classroom

14. rather . . .writing practices are enabling constraints that you can use to teach your students writingwriting practices focus on declarative (knowing about), procedural (knowing how) and conditional (knowing when) strategies

15. Other writing practicesFreewritingInvisible writingCollaborative stories (Exquisite corpse for e.g.)Word CollagesCopying text from favourite writerClose reading to study technique that is then copiedCut apart revisionChanging tense, person, genreClustering or mapping

16. Writing PoetryEven this morning would be an improvement over the present I was in the garden then surrounded by the hum of bees and the Latin names of flowers watching the early light flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks as usual I was thinking about the moments of the past letting my memory rush over them like waterrushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream I was even thinking a little about the future that place where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine a dance whose name we can only guess

17. Nostalgia Billy Collins

18. Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of beesand the Latin names of flowers, watching the early lightflash off the slanted windows of the greenhouseand silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,letting my memory rush over them like waterrushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.I was even thinking a little about the future, that placewhere people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,a dance whose name we can only guess.

19. A HumumentTom Phillips most famous work is A Humument:A Treated Victorian Novel. One day, Phillips went to a bookseller's with the express intention of buying a cheap book to use as the basis of an art project. He randomly purchased a novel calledA Human Document by Victorian author WilliamMallock, and began a long project of creating art from its pages. He paints, collages or draws over the pages, leaving some of the text peeking through in serpentine bubble shapes, creating a "found" text with its own story, different from the original.http://www.rosacordis.com/humument/intro.html

22. For Next Week Bring hard copy of the essay: “Mind-Forg’d Manacles”: The Academic EssayBring your writing from tonight and read the piece about Learning Grammar in Context