BEGINS JANUARY 20, 2020 - 8 week course

Discover how to make teaching writing easier for students (and you)! 

Writing in the content areas demands not only grade level literacy skills, but also a grasp of academic language and an understanding of the complexities of genre.

Skillful writers know how to use language to fit their context: the purpose for writing such as to inform, to explain, to persuade, to entertain; the roles and relationships we establish with readers such as how to create an objective and expert-like tone, and structure their text so that readers can follow it. 

So how do we begin teaching all that to students as young as 5 and continue growing them through high school graduation?

In this course, participants will explore teaching writing explicitly through an apprenticeship pedagogy where teachers deconstruct mentor texts through language lens and jointly construct it with students before students are sent off to write on their own. Participants will also explore the different genres of writing in math, science, and other content areas. 

This course will give teachers tools to make language and writing expectations explicit and visible for students.  

Overarching Course Outcomes: 

1. Participants will learn that writing is not only forming correct sentences, but also involves organizing writing for particular purposes and audiences.
2. Participants will analyze differences between spoken and written language.
3. Participants will identify high stakes genres important to their disciplines and develop language lens for deconstructing mentor texts.  
4. Participants will design units following the Teaching and Learning Cycle to ensure their lessons are sequenced well enough in the process of writing in the disciplines. 

Three graduate credits available from Brandman University for an additional fee of $225.  Details for registering for graduate available upon enrollment.