1. John Collins Writing Approach A writing across the curriculum framework.

2. Premise behind the approach Getting students to write across the curriculum shouldn’t overwhelm the teacher. Writing isn’t an “English teacher only” activity. This was designed for teachers from grade 4-12.

3. Five Types of Writing assignments TYPE ONE: Brainstorming…get the thoughts down on paper. This takes little class time. It’s a “stop and think” time for all students, not just the talkers. Just a simple walk around as they are brainstorming, can provide any teacher with the prior knowledge level of students.

4. While it takes absolutely no prep time on part of teacher, it never will directly improve writing skills BUT it can re- enforce content knowledge! Evaluation has to be on effort only. Did the student do the task? The classroom climate must be risk free.

5. TYPE TWO: This writing is a direct response to a question of topic. It has a right/wrong answer. The prompt must be clear and have a direct answer. Answers need to be concise, not full of added verbiage.

6. It is like a quiz. It can be graded as so. It seeks a higher level of thinking than an objective test because it promotes expression of content rich thought. While it prompts writing fluency, it does not directly improve writing skills such as organization, sentence structure or word choice.

7. The teacher of content can easily walk the class as the students are writing and get very quick feedback on who is understanding and who is not. It is a great assessor to drive the minute by minute instruction during the lesson.

8. TYPE THREE: Substantive content that meets 3 specific standards called FCA’s or Focus Correction Areas. There is a draft, a read aloud, and a review to see if the draft fits the standard. Revising and editing are expected on the draft.

9. This type of writing takes more planning on part of teacher, but still is efficient to grade. This type of writing is self-reflective for the student since the read-aloud phase contains: Did I complete the assignment? Does the composition sound right? Is it easy to read? Do I have problems with the FCA’s? Taken from Developing Writing and Thinking Skills Across the Curriculum: A Practical Program for Schools, Colins Education Associates, 1992.

10. Writing skills can be improved with this Type since the FCA’s can be designed to address them. This type of assignment requires intent and purpose on the part of the teacher. The structure must be followed to work the best.

11. TYPE FOUR: Entails the qualities of Type Three, but adds a peer editing phase. Two students work together to listen to and edit each other’s drafts. Two copies of each paper are needed since BOTH students view the same work at once.

12. The same questions are followed. The FAC grading process is also the same. Promotes Collaborative Writing, but is time consuming and evaluations need to be fair and objective. Promotes the improvement of writing skills.

13. TYPE FIVE: This writing taken to final draft, publishable quality. Multiple drafts are necessary. This is a major project, it is time consuming. Evaluation is difficult because of so many phases and levels before publishing.

14. Focus Correcting Teacher selects critical problem areas to correct and then only corrects those. Often they are based on the intent of the lesson, or on a writing skill being taught. It helps the student focus on improvement in certain areas and not just on the general grade.

15. The less mature the writer, the more specific the FCA should be. (i.e. no run- on sentences.) More mature writers may see an FCA asking for sentence variety. Point values are then assigned for each FCA.

16. In Content The content goals drive the FCA’s. The teacher of content has to think through what the major points are since only 3 are usually capsulated in the FCA’s.

17. John Collins and Content Writing The first 3 TYPES of writing in the John Collins approach are perfect for writing across the content. The freedom for the teacher to create FCA’s dealing with their content in the writing, allows flexibility beyond just English/Language Arts. It promotes higher level thinking in the content.