The NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing, written by the Writing Study Group of the NCTE Executive Committee, pinpoints 11 key issues in the effective teaching of writing. Over the next few weeks, we will unpack each one. This week, we will look at:
“Composing occurs in different modalities and technologies.”
Writing instruction must accommodate the explosion in technology from the world around us. These resources from NCTE and ReadWriteThink.org demonstrate teaching ideas involving multiple media.
“The Interactive Potential of Multiple Media: A New Look at Inquiry Projects” presents the inquiry and literacy processes of two fifth-grade students as they created a digital video about African American history for a school project. The interaction of the various media in the project (books, writing notebooks, the Web, digital video) created a synergy that fostered and perpetuated the students’ literacy and inquiry processes.
In “Short Story Fair: Responding to Short Stories in Multiple Media and Genres”, students read short stories and create presentations in multiple media to share in a Short Story Fair. At the fair, students explore and respond to the displays.
In “Approaching Young Adult Literature through Multiple Literacies” the authors demonstrate how current understandings of literacy learning can be integrated with traditional teaching strategies in the study of literature.
The “Teaching with Technology” strategy guide series from ReadWriteThink.org, provides examples of effective literacy teaching and learning strategies and offer a wealth of related resources to help sharpen instruction and integrate technology.
“Digitizing Craft: Creative Writing Studies and New Media: A Proposal” identifies and examines a digital arm of creative writing studies and organizes that proposal into four categories through which to theorize the “craft” of creative production.
How do you use the NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing in your classroom?