Writing to Learn

Writing-to-Learn Activities

by Bette LaSere Erickson and Diane W. Strommer

Traditionally, writing assignments assess what students have learned. Writing-to-learn serves a different purpose. In these exercises, students write to and for themselves in order to collect their thoughts and get them down on paper, where they can be examined and revised. Typically, writing-to-learn exercises are short: a few sentences, perhaps a paragraph or two. Although faculty often collect and skim what students have written in order to see what they are thinking, writing-to-learn exercises are usually not graded.

Writing-to-learn assignments, like small group discussion activities, can serve a variety of purposes. Beginning class, for example, by asking students to write a one-paragraph summary of the previous class helps to connect learning. Pausing periodically during lecture or discussion to ask students to summarize the main points helps avoid overloading working memory and keeps students actively involved. To prompt deeper processing of material, stop from time to time during class and ask students to jot down an example from their own experience, write about another context in which the material might apply, describe the way in which they would go about solving a problem, or react to an interpretation or conclusion. (For additional ideas see Bean, 1996; Sorcinelli & Elbow, 1997.)

Similar writing-to-learn assignments encourage more active and thorough reading of assignments outside class. Because paraphrasing is an important step toward processing information deeply, assignments that ask students to write summaries or explanations as if they were writing to a relative or to a friend are good prompts for deeper study. Depending on the nature of the reading, faculty might ask students to write about an experience they have had related to the reading, provide an example not discussed in the reading, imagine how the author might respond to a current event or issue, think of a possible exception to an author's ideas, or write questions they would like to ask the author. The possibilities are many; the idea is to move students beyond verbatim memorization to deeper processing of their reading. Bean (1996) devotes an entire chapter to using writing to help students read difficult texts.

Small group discussions and writing-to-learn activities provide a good beginning repertoire of instructional methods. Simply by changing the tasks and questions, both methods can involve students in practice for a variety of objectives. They are especially potent for encouraging students to process information more deeply. Even a two- or three-minute discussion or writing-to-learn activity engages students in paraphrasing, summarizing, or thinking of other examples. They work in any size class, even very large ones. By alternating these methods or using them in combination, we accommodate both students who learn by talking things through (extraverts) and students who prefer thinking things through before they engage in activity (introverts).