writing in a content area

The connection between writing and reading is clear and apparent, yet many teachers dread introducing writing to the lesson because so many children find the process tedious and difficult. Few of us would describe ourselves as writers, and children are no different.
In today’s classroom, however, teachers are not constricted by the typical essay or having students write a sentence for each vocabulary word. Teachers today understand that writing occurs anywhere. Writing can occur in children captioning their drawings, in making a list of what they will bring to recess, in creating rules for Minecraft, or in describing the dragon flying around the classroom. Children write everywhere and about everything.
Our strategies for enhancing their writing and helping them see the connections between writing and reading are endless. In the Week 5 Assignment, you explore and design one strategy.
To Prepare:
Work collaboratively with your host teacher, in your field setting, to design a writing activity in a content area. This activity should support identity development through self-expression using ideas presented in the Week 5 Learning Resources.
To Complete:
Design a writing activity that includes multimodal text in a content area and requires the student to communicate visually and orally. This activity must foster student self-expression.
Implement the activity with your focus child, and reflect on the implementation as follows:
How did the writing activity support and extend the previous reading activity? How might it support future reading in this and other content areas?
How did the student respond to using multimodal text to learn and demonstrate learning?
What benefits and challenges did the student experience by communicating learning both visually and orally?
Why is writing to foster self-expression and student identity development critical?