Induction

Explaining how such higher order thinking skills as induction are the foundation of all writing, Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers explains how to teach writing "backwards," moving toward a focal point only after first gathering a wide range of materials, including quotes, anecdotes, descriptive detail, and facts. In addition to more traditional forms of research (book-, newspaper-, or Internet-derived), the book details how students can gather materials via personal remembrance, on-site observation, interview, and field experiences to flesh out their discussion and perspective. Subsequent chapters show how students can utilize a variety of structures to organize their material, and a discussion of rhetorical styles illustrates how alternative approaches to teaching grammar can improve diction and sentence structure.

A Writing Continuum

The central thesis of Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers is the need to expand the range of writing experiences students encounter. In addition to literary analysis, SAT and state exams require students to draw from personal experience and contemporary events in a reflective and persuasive manner. Additionally, reading programs benefit when students model the fictional and non-fictional works they read. With an expanded repertoire of skills, students engage in a dialogue between material they read and material they write, the skills of one discipline reinforcing the other.

 

Scope and Sequence

The corollary of an expanded writing program is an integrated, sequenced curriculum. A fully developed program requires attention to when skills are introduced, when and how they are reinforced (not merely repeated), and when they are mastered. Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers explains what goes into the development of a scope and sequence program, offering tips on what to focus on as a department examines its graduation goals. A sample program--integrating the writing ideas presented in the book--illustrates what a sequentially integrated program might look like.

 

Analysis

In line with the book's emphasis on an inductive approach within an integrated program, the chapter on analysis explains how to teach analysis conceptually, how to approach a single text from a number of analytic vantages, and when--in a scope and sequence program--to introduce each technique. In addition to discussion about the traditional textual analysis, Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers offers instruction in mythological, sociological, psychological, and deconstructuve approaches.

 

Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and

Write) Like Writers

 

Table of Contents

1. Overview

How induction and other higher order thinking skills can improve writing performance.

2. Beyond the Omelette: A Writing Continuum

Creating a continuum of writing experiences that expands the range of skills and techniques. Explains how to teach personal and fiction work (the suggestive), informative and interview-based writing (the reportorial), and evaluative and analytic pieces (the critical).

3. The Matrix of Meaning: Induction

Explains how to clarify the inductive process for students, drawing from a range of cultural examples.

4. Rummaging the Cupboard: Gathering

Inductive writing begins by gathering specifics. Chapter four defines research to include a number of ways students can gather specifics: through close reading, observation, brainstorming, first-hand experience, interview, and printed sources. Also explains the material students can gather as they prepare to write: anecdotes, descriptive details, quotations, and facts.

5. The First Shall Be Last: Structuring

Using induction to teach four ways to structure material (by category, by order, by comparison, and by contrast). Detailed examples include how to structure dialectially, via a continuum, with a spatial arrangement, an interwoven format, and others.

6. Piece by Piece: The Specifics of Analysis

Details how to use induction to teach the concept of analysis, providing five different approaches: textual, sociological, mythological, psychological, and deconstructive.

7. Developing Voice: Rhetoric and Poetics

How inductive teaching can better communicate the specifics of style, focusing on diction, sentence construction, punctuation, and gathering detail.

8. Stew Versus Souffle: Scope and Sequence

Putting all the book's ideas into a sequentially developed program. Also explains how departments can work with their own materials and approaches to create a four- or six-year program that builds on skills.

 

If you would like to order Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers, the text is available through Christopher-Gordon Publishers (call toll free at 1-800-934-8322 or order the book online: Christopher-Gordon) and at Amazon.com.

Induction

Explaining how such higher order thinking skills as induction are the foundation of all writing, Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers explains how to teach writing "backwards," moving toward a focal point only after first gathering a wide range of materials, including quotes, anecdotes, descriptive detail, and facts. In addition to more traditional forms of research (book-, newspaper-, or Internet-derived), the book details how students can gather materials via personal remembrance, on-site observation, interview, and field experiences to flesh out their discussion and perspective. Subsequent chapters show how students can utilize a variety of structures to organize their material, and a discussion of rhetorical styles illustrates how alternative approaches to teaching grammar can improve diction and sentence structure.

A Writing Continuum

The central thesis of Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers is the need to expand the range of writing experiences students encounter. In addition to literary analysis, SAT and state exams require students to draw from personal experience and contemporary events in a reflective and persuasive manner. Additionally, reading programs benefit when students model the fictional and non-fictional works they read. With an expanded repertoire of skills, students engage in a dialogue between material they read and material they write, the skills of one discipline reinforcing the other.

 

Scope and Sequence

The corollary of an expanded writing program is an integrated, sequenced curriculum. A fully developed program requires attention to when skills are introduced, when and how they are reinforced (not merely repeated), and when they are mastered. Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers explains what goes into the development of a scope and sequence program, offering tips on what to focus on as a department examines its graduation goals. A sample program--integrating the writing ideas presented in the book--illustrates what a sequentially integrated program might look like.

 

Analysis

In line with the book's emphasis on an inductive approach within an integrated program, the chapter on analysis explains how to teach analysis conceptually, how to approach a single text from a number of analytic vantages, and when--in a scope and sequence program--to introduce each technique. In addition to discussion about the traditional textual analysis, Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers offers instruction in mythological, sociological, psychological, and deconstructuve approaches.

 

Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and

Write) Like Writers

 

Table of Contents

1. Overview

How induction and other higher order thinking skills can improve writing performance.

2. Beyond the Omelette: A Writing Continuum

Creating a continuum of writing experiences that expands the range of skills and techniques. Explains how to teach personal and fiction work (the suggestive), informative and interview-based writing (the reportorial), and evaluative and analytic pieces (the critical).

3. The Matrix of Meaning: Induction

Explains how to clarify the inductive process for students, drawing from a range of cultural examples.

4. Rummaging the Cupboard: Gathering

Inductive writing begins by gathering specifics. Chapter four defines research to include a number of ways students can gather specifics: through close reading, observation, brainstorming, first-hand experience, interview, and printed sources. Also explains the material students can gather as they prepare to write: anecdotes, descriptive details, quotations, and facts.

5. The First Shall Be Last: Structuring

Using induction to teach four ways to structure material (by category, by order, by comparison, and by contrast). Detailed examples include how to structure dialectially, via a continuum, with a spatial arrangement, an interwoven format, and others.

6. Piece by Piece: The Specifics of Analysis

Details how to use induction to teach the concept of analysis, providing five different approaches: textual, sociological, mythological, psychological, and deconstructive.

7. Developing Voice: Rhetoric and Poetics

How inductive teaching can better communicate the specifics of style, focusing on diction, sentence construction, punctuation, and gathering detail.

8. Stew Versus Souffle: Scope and Sequence

Putting all the book's ideas into a sequentially developed program. Also explains how departments can work with their own materials and approaches to create a four- or six-year program that builds on skills.

 

If you would like to order Writing is Dialogue: Teaching Students to Think (and Write) Like Writers, the text is available through Christopher-Gordon Publishers (call toll free at 1-800-934-8322 or order the book online: Christopher-Gordon) and at Amazon.com.