Spice Up Subject Area Writing

To add a little life into your content-area writings, students may appreciate playing with voice. Beyond just writing explanatory pieces to the teacher, develop a writing task that allows students to use their content knowledge by writing as if they were a particular object. For example:

• Pretend you are a seed experiencing disbursement by wind, water, and/or animal. Write a letter to your “parents” describing your journey as a seed.
• Describe what it’s like if you were a baby chick trying to hatch out of an egg.
• Pretend you are a rain drop. Describe your life including reference to cloud formation, precipitation, and evaporation.

Not only will students have to utilize their content knowledge (and the vocabulary) to complete these writing assignments, they will be more “into it” because of the unique point of view it allows. In fact, several teachers have shared that their students are proud of their point of view writings and more eager to read them aloud to their classmates.

TIP: To aid in grading, the content area teacher may choose to have students incorporate specific vocabulary terms within the writing and then underline the words before turning in the piece. This allows the teacher to quickly scan and assess the student’s accuracy and overall understanding of the content.