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PRoGRaAMS an PRACTICES Writing Across the Secondary School Curriculum Edited by Pamela Farrell-Childers • Anne Ruggles Gere • Art Young Boynton/Cook Publishers Heinemann Portsmouth, NH Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc. A Subsidiary of Reed Publishing (USA) Inc. 361 Hanover Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801-3912 Offices and agents throughout the world Copyright © 1994 by Pamela B. Farrell-Childers, Anne Ruggles Gere, and Art Young. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Editor: Peter Stillman Production: J. B. Tranchemontagne Cover design: Julie Hahn Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders for permission to reprint borrowed material. We regret any oversights that may have occurred and would be happy to rectify them in the future printings of this work. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Programs and practices: writing across the secondary school curriculum/edited by Pamela B. Farrell-Childers, Anne Ruggles Gere, Art Young. p. em. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-86709-334-X 1. English language- Composition and exercises- Study and teaching (Secondary)- United States. 2. Interdisciplinary approach in education- United States. I. Farrell-Childers, Pamela B., 1943- ll. Gere, Anne Ruggles, 1944- III. Young, Art, 1943- LB1631.P698 1994 808'042'0712- dc20 93-5996 CIP Printed in the United States of America Contents Introduction 1 Contexts for Change: Problems and Possibilities 7 1 Resistance as Inspiration in a Language and Learning Program Bernadette Glaze and Christopher Thaiss 9 References 19 2 Teachers as Decision Makers: Creating Classroom, School, and Systemwide Changes Marcella Emberger and Clare Kruft with Sally McNelis and Sharon Robbins 20 Appendix A 35 Appendix B 36 References 37 3 Letters from the (Cutting) Edge: Promoting Writing Across the Curriculum Through Assessment Lois E. Easton and Roger Shanley 38 References 48 4 A High School/College Writing Across the Curriculum Project: Successes and Constraints Brenda Greene and Lorraine Kuziw 49 5 Student-Developed Multimedia: An Ideal Vehicle for Writing Across the Curriculum Nancy Linvill and Chris Peters 59 Appendix 71 Ways of Collaborating 73 6 Four Collaborative Projects George D. Wilson 75 IV Contents Notes 83 References 83 7 Writing Across the Curriculum at Shorewood High: Integrative Models, Student Investments Steve Pearse 84 References 98 8 Using a Team Approach in High School to Increase Student Achievement Barry Gadlin with Linda Ashida, Barry Brown, Jack Elliott, Suellyn Gates, Bernie Kelly, Chris Kelly, Mary Beth Khoury, Robert Koralik, Marianne Rosenstein, and Charles Widlowski 99 References 110 9 Writing to Learn Science Rae Bruce and Rodney Mansfield 111 References 121 10 The Puget Sound Literature Project: Secondary and University Instructors in a Teaching Team Mary E. Kollar 122 References 135 11 Technology: An Invitation for Writing and Collaboration Eve Coleman and Jeanne C. Sink with Odessa Wilson 137 Appendix 151 References 153 12 Collaboration as Sharing Experiences: A Detroit Public Schools/ University of Michigan Course Barbra Morris and George Cooper with Constance Childress, Mary Cox, and Patricia Williams 154 Notes 169 References 170 Ways of Implementing Programs 171 13 One Vision at a Time Betty Beck 173 Acknowledgments 184 Contents v 14 Tiger Talking Time: Writing Across the Curriculum at Saluda High School Gloria Caldwell, Melissa Deloach, Lyn Zalusky Mueller, and Edwin C. Epps 185 15 Writing Across the Curriculum at The McCallie School Pamela B. Farrell-Childers with Peter LaRochelle, Cissy May, Catherine Neuhardt-Minor, Lance Nickel, and David B. Perkinson 196 References 214 16 Development of Writing Across the Curriculum at Berkshire School Elizabeth L. Clifford with Dean Ellerton, Heather Prescott, Anna Romano, and Hilary Russell 215 References 227 17 Projects and Partnerships: Writing, Teaching, and Learning in the School District of Philadelphia Judy Buchanan and Andrew Gelber 228 References 236 18 From Top Down to Grass Roots: Writing Across the Curriculum Districtwide Nana E. Hilsenbeck 237 Appendix 242 19 An Open Letter: Why Should Teachers Become Involved with Writing Across the Curriculum? James K. Upton 246 Description of Programs 256 Notes on Contributors 276 Introduction Pamela Farrell-Childers, Anne Ruggles Gere, and Art Young Writing across the curriculum (WAC) has been an important initiative for educational reform in the nation's schools for more than a decade. We have heard teachers report on WAC efforts at annual conventions of the National Council of Teachers of English as well as at various regional and affiliate NCTE meetings, at local sites of the National Writing Project, at the Bread Loaf School of English summer sessions, in classrooms and school districts, and in informal conversations in the corridors of school buildings and convention centers. Numerous articles and several books have been published recently that provide theoretical perspectives and classroom strategies for incorporating WAC into all kinds of courses and that report the results of innovative collaborations by teachers in different disciplines. Most of these conference presen tations and published works have focused on small groups of teachers working together to improve their students' learning and communication abilities through curricular projects and classroom innovations. Thanks to these teacher-scholars, we have a good deal of information about how individual teachers employ WAC strategies in their classes. We know a great deal less about how groups of teachers and administrators work together to develop WAC programs that extend across schools or districts. In diverse locations across the nation, in rural, urban, and suburban schools, efforts are now emerging to institutionalize WAC programs or to sustain WAC initiatives by integrating them into other programs such as statewide assessment. The major purpose of this book, then, is to describe and critique some ways WAC has been incorporated into schoolwide, districtwide, and statewide programs. WAC efforts, which most often begin with small groups of teachers working in a limited number of classrooms, can and often do expand to become the catalyst for systemic change. In these pages readers will find the philosophical foundations for WAC programs and numerous specific classroom appli cations that provide the explanatory power of practical experience. In addition, teachers and administrators will discover ways others are nurturing WAC by creating environments in which WAC becomes central to an institution's educational mission. The goals of WAC improved learning and communication- are supported by many edu cational constituencies. Yet, for many reasons, ranging from lack of 2 Introduction funding to lack of models for sustaining in schools what is fundamentally interdisciplinary and collaborative, successfully institutionalizing WAC presents challenges. As individual schools, school districts, and state agencies begin to undertake this task, we believe that the nineteen cases presented here offer workable possibilities, imaginative solutions, and honest doubts about the problems of bringing theWAC movement to the nation's children. Writing across the curriculum has its beginnings, for the three of us, in the late 1970s. As we and others in the United States were worrying about declining test scores and the lack of value our society and our educational system seemed to place on written communication, we became aware of the important work of James Britton, Nancy Martin, and their colleagues at the University of London's Schools Council Project. Theirs was a major effort to integrate and then study "language across the curriculum" in English schools in the 1960s and 1970s. Their work demonstrated in theory and practice that language was integral to learning as well as to communication in all disciplines. Many supporters who began WAC projects in the U.S. at that time were motivated by a desire to enhance student abilities in these two areas. First, they were concerned with students' ability to communicate, what was often called student literacy-functional literacy, critical literacy, academic literacy. Teachers, administrators, and funding agencies wanted students to read and write better. Second, supporters were concerned with students' abilities as learners-they wanted students to become more active and engaged learners, critical thinkers, and problem solvers. They believed that providing students with increased opportunities to use writing as a tool for learning would help achieve these goals. We might say that first-generation WAC programs founded on these premises focused on the cognitive development of individual students. They encouraged writing in all disciplines to enable students to become astute learners, critical thinkers, and effective communicators. In the 1980s, teachers and scholars explored the social dimensions of written communication, an exploration that gradually shifted WAC theory and practice away from the purely cognitive to a more socially based perspective. This shift paralleled WAC's move from the individual classroom into the wider social arena of school, district, and state. Thus, to the first two premises for WAC programs (learning and communication), a third and fourth were added. The