Content Based Instruction : Teaching And Writing Skills

Downs & Wardle’s “Teaching about writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re) Envisioning “First Year Composition” as “Introduction to Writing Studies” talks about several ways to refer to writing and our response to it. As well as the misconceptions students have towards the proper way of writing and how they have managed to break the “college writing” stereotype and discover their own way of writing.

Writing can be a daunting task for students in any grade. Teachers have to implement new basic components for those struggling to write. Finding new methods and being able to execute them requires teachers to design lesson plans that help

San Pasqual Union School is located in the San Pasqual Valley region southeast of Escondido, California. This small school is a one-school school district with approximately 550 students, grades pre-school to eighth grade. Students that attend San Pasqual Union are identified within three distinct groups. The majority of students are primarily Caucasian and live in a newer development, across from the school, with families who are from a mid to high socioeconomic status. Another group is Hispanic students who live in a more rural part of the valley. Lastly, within the school boundaries, is a residential high school campus for foster teens. The foster youth who are not in high school attend San Pasqual Union for eighth grade. Both the Hispanic students from the rural valley and the foster youth ride the school bus to and from school.

In chapter 9, Writing Across the Curriculum, the process of reading and writing was investigated and explained in comparison to one another. The reading-writing connection focuses on drawing from students’ prior knowledge and cognitive processes in order to build learning. The authors mentioned that the writing process is a strong tool for exploring and clarifying meaning and the two major instructional components used are writing to learn (WTL) and writing in disciplines (WID). The chapter also focused on the subareas of academic journals and writing disciplines.

When you have completed your exam and reviewed your answers, click Submit Exam. Answers will not be recorded until you hit Submit Exam. If you need to exit before completing the exam, click Cancel Exam. Questions 1 to 20: Select the best answer to each question. Note that a question and its answers may be split across a page break, so be sure that you have seen the entire question and all the answers before choosing an answer.

English learners (ELs) struggle with content literacy task because the “academic language of texts is not the language of conversational speech” Vacca et al. (2014, P.77). Every content area has a specific language. ELs find it difficult because they are not familiar with the academic language in that content area. For example, an English learner in first grade might have difficulties understanding his peers in a reading group excises because of the content language but, when they go outside to play, they communicate fluently because this English learner has mastered the playground language. Teachers can make content more accessible to students by using a variety of instructional strategies or aids to assist students with English language problems in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Interactive, cooperative activities, pictures, relevant media etc. are some of the shelter instructional strategies which teachers can use to make content accessible to students (p.82).

The teacher understands effective writing and teaches students to write effectively in a variety of forms and for various audiences, purposes and contexts.

Writing Prompt. This two-day lesson assessment determined whether or not students met the lesson’s objective. We chose this assessment because it provides qualitative data and incorporates the writing standard into our lesson. Also, the writing prompt is an open-ended assessment tool that does not limit the students’ choices when answering the prompt. If we gave them a multiple choice form of assessment, then the students only have 4 options to choose from that may not represent their thoughts entirely. Plus, students could select the correct answer through process of elimination, which would not represent the full picture of their knowledge and understandings. The writing prompt required the students to individually explain to an alien what its responsibilities are now that it is a member of the local community. Attached to the writing prompt was a writing rubric that would guide students to write a complete answer (See Appendix A). Since their language arts and reading teacher uses this writing rubric for her assignments, the student are familiar with it and understand how to write a complete answer. We had the students complete it individually so we could see each students’ voice and thoughts and eliminate the possibility of their answer being influenced by their peers’ opinions. Since we understand that the “the results of assessment are used to inform the planning and implementing of experiences and to evaluate and improve teachers’ and the program’s effectiveness”

Advanced Top Notch textbook is an integrated four-skill textbook for adults who want to use English to communicate effectively in daily life. It is also Easy and enjoyable to teach and that it combines proven communicative methodology with a practical outcomes-based approach. That said, it includes a clear part for teaching vocabulary, a small section for grammatical point, and functional conversations centering around dialogues in every unit accompanied by systematic practice of all speaking skill. However, it places special emphasis on helping students become confident and competent speakers of English. Speaking activities at the end of every lesson, tied to clearly label measurable outcomes, enable students to see the results of their learning

To support and demonstrate spelling skills, a teaching assistant may be involved in whole class,

Hello Brevin, I have to agree with your statement about the intimidating task of writing based courses. I, too, felt that I would excel in the writing-based course due to experience with creating narratives for reports and writing city ordinances for legal review. I have found that the experience of a writing-based course is focused on forcing one to learn.

Currently, my intended career path is to teach English in a Texas High School classroom. Although I’m open to teaching any of the grades encompassed in the secondary- level certification, right now I am looking towards either English II or English IV in the tenth grade and twelfth grade year respectively. I would also like to get my master’s degree so that I may teach dual credit courses, and in the future, am considering getting a doctorate as well.

Rationale: this activity will help students practice spelling, vocabulary, grammar and text formation which differ quite a lot from speaking.

In teaching and learning English, there are two aspects that should be concerned. The first one is the language skills such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The second one is the language components such as vocabulary, and grammar. These two aspects are taught in order to make the students achieve the ability in communicating both in spoken and written forms.

The goal of this method is to help the students to be able to communicate in the target language. In order to achieve this purpose, the Audio-Lingual Method contains the following characteristics. Firstly, contextualized dialogs are utilized to present new vocabulary and structures in class. Secondly, the conversations are learned through drills which are considered as an integral part of the Audio-Lingual Method. In my own teaching, backward build-up drill, repetition drill and substitution drill contribute importantly the success of students’ learning. Next, grammar rules are induced from examples. By this approach, students personalize and use the grammatical points naturally like the way they acquire the native language. Based on above features, it is believed that the Audio-Lingual Method has a part in the communicative development of students in the target language.