The document discusses helping students improve their writing skills through a Writing Across the Curriculum initiative. It notes that students need to be able to articulate thoughts in an academic way and that writing can help students interact more deeply with ideas. However, many students lack basic organizational skills and the ability to engage in reasoned analysis. The initiative aims to expose students to writing to communicate learning, help them understand necessary structure, and start thinking in a way that mirrors effective composition. Group activities and modeling appropriate essay development are discussed as ways to collaboratively develop these skills.

1. Writing Across the Curriculum Iniative Cultural Perspectives CoP A.K.A. Mrs. Perez and the Magic School Bus / Bobby Wilson and the Chuck School All-Stars / Untitled work in progress

2. Essential Questions: How do we help students become more comfortable expressing themselves with the written word?How do we help students understand the language, vocabulary, and structure of ideas necessary to effectively communicate in an academic setting?

3. A view from the CoP… C. Lee, “In order to better be able to communicate a complete thought, students need to be able to articulate it in a way the academic establishment will respect and take seriously. It all begins with stringing words together in a coherent way.” C. Bradley: “Writing also serves as a means of making students interact at a deeper level with the ideas they encounter in the classroom. It makes students use analysis, synthesis and evaluation in a way that other means of communications cannot.” J. Luke, “Many of the students excel at giving their opinion or connecting to their thoughts on a subject. This is a valuable skill that must be tempered with discipline, skill, and careful consideration. Students are very quick to give their opinion which is great because it connects them to my class and their peers. However, it is easy to see their conversations and papers devolve into witless banter rather than reasoned and disciplined analysis. Students most often lack basic organizational skills. The idea of a thesis, conclusion, and topic sentences are all intuitive but not something that the students can simply do. U. Khan, “Writing in French (or any foreign language) allows students to enter into a new mindset and thought process.” Y. Perez, “Before my students are ready to write, they need to understand the grammar, learn a lot of vocabulary, read stories and able to understand the order of the syntax in a sentence.”

4. Themes from our CoP Discussions A student’s presentation of ideas is in many ways as important as the content of their composition When done well, writing allows the author to internalize material in a way that is unique and maybe more powerful than other methods of learning

7. Collaborative Development of These Skills Group discussion of the Active Reading Worksheet Group Projects Being Progressive Group Assignment Based upon your understanding of the Progressive movement, I want you to consider how to improve our world. Working in groups of no more than 4, please do the following: Think about and choose an issue facing our country that we can correct in our time. Think about how the progressives worked to improve labor conditions, living standards, political participation, etc…. and choose an issue that is not obvious! As a group, develop a proposal for the class. Your presentation should include: Our issue is…. This is why we chose this issue…. Remember that muckrakers used media to influence the public. Some real life examples of the problem you wish to tackle would be useful. This is how we want to solve the problem. Offer at least 3 solutions Lastly, describe why solving the problem you have located could be considered progress for our society.

8. Modeling Appropriate Development of an Essay for My Discipline During the 2nd Industrial Revolution leaders of big business like Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J.P Morgan were sometimes described as “Captains of Industry” and other times as “Robber Barons.” How can these men be seen as both heroes and villains and which do you think is a more fitting description? Introduction Thesis and 3 main arguments Paragraph One How can they be described as Captains of Industry Paragraph Two How can they be described as Robber Barons Paragraph Three I believe that these business leaders were… Conclusion Restate thesis

9. Student Work

10. Self Assessment

11. Student’s Self Assessment