This strategy is not a new one to teachers and is used in most classrooms. Sentence frames is a great strategy that assesses vocabulary knowledge and comprehension of the content. These can be completed with or without additional text. Sentence frames are great for formatives and to check understanding after instruction. An example is below:

The Treaty of Versailles was a peace document signed between __________________and ________________ on _________________. The treaty ended the state of war that had existed between _____________ and the _____________ from 19__and brought _______________to an end.

The objectives for each of the Big Four were as follows:

The Americans:________________________________

The British:___________________________________

The French:__________________________________

The Italians: __________________________________

The effect on the Germans was __________________________

This is a simple interactive strategy that works great for review of content or as a "we-do" activity to practice new content. This works best when students are seated in small groups or in rows.

To start, provide the students with a writing prompt that either reviews a process or recounts an event. Each student has a sheet of lined paper and pen or pencil. Students are provided two minutes to write the first step in the process or the first occurence in an event. When the two minutes is up, ask students to pass their paper to the person behind them or person to their right. Restart the timer, and students can either add the next step (or next occurence) to their classmate's paper OR revise what was written (if they think it was wrong). They should be finished when the two minutes is up. Ask students to pass their paper in the same direction and provide the same directions as before (either add or edit). Continue in this method until all steps (or occurrences) are written down properly.

Not only does this act as a collaborative review, but encourages students to communicate through writing, while practicing the revision stage of writing.

According to an article on Reading Rockets, "Teachers and researchers understand that fluency is an important consideration in reading development but sometimes neglect writing fluency. If students do not writing [sic] enough, they don't have anything to edit. Because writing is thinking, if students are not writing fluently, they probably aren't thinking fluently, at least about the topic of study" (Fisher and Frey). So how does this translate to your subject? If your students are not able to express in writing their comprehension, evaluation, and analysis of your content, they are probably not thinking about the content.

Power writing is a method for building writing fluency through brief, timed writing events (Fearn & Farnan, 2001). The purpose is to get students to put ideas down on paper quickly and accurately. During content area instruction, teachers can integrate a simple daily routine of three one-minute rounds of fluency-building experiences. This will ensure that students have daily practice with writing, which addresses part of the requirements of Writing Anchor Standard 10, the part focused on shorter time frames.

A content area word or phrase is posted on the board, and students are asked to use it somewhere in their writing. Students are reminded to “write as much as you can, as well as you can” (Fearn & Farnan, 2001, p. 196). The timer is set, and writing begins until it rings a minute later. When time is up, students reread what they have written, circling any errors they notice, then count and record the number of words in the margin.

This routine is repeated two more times, until students have three one-minute writing samples in their journals. They then record the highest number of words written (often it is the third sample) on a sheet of graph paper kept in their notebook.

Takeaway: student writing fluency improves with practice and students are thinking about the content.

Interactive writing is a process that works best with either the whole class or in groups. Students are given a problem, and have to work together to write down the investigative steps clearly and correctly, using proper technical terms and correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. Students write then work together to revise and edit their writing before sharing with the class or teacher. The writing is interactive because all students in the group are involved with finding the solution and brainstorming the correct way to express it in writing.

Not only is this activity well-suited for any class, but it is also a great reinforcing strategy for any students who struggle with language. Additionally, because the investigations are based on your current unit, you can add other components, such as including certain vocabulary in the written text, or providing the students a choice of investigations. The possibilities with this activity are endless!

The purpose of writing from sources is to compose informative or explanatory text that is dependent on evidence from another text. This is a great follow-up activity to an annotated reading assignment, and can easily be used as a formative. The topic of the writing should be based on the assigned text and require students to use evidence from the text to support their explanations. Students work independently on this activity. I've listed some examples below to show how it would look in different subjects:

• Math: Read about traffic patterns in a specific part of town. Explain how to use polynomials to determine how many traffic lights are needed on a major road in that part of town.

• Science: Read about elements, atoms, molecules, and compounds. Students should explain the relationship between these four components.

• Social Studies: Read about the Silk Road. Students should explain how this trade route impacted different cultures.

• Art: Read about the different mediums used by artists within a particular era. Students should explain why these artists chose these mediums and how the artwork would change if a different medium was chosen.

• Music: Read about two musicians from two different time periods. Explain how the time periods affected the creative expression of each.

• PE: Read about the pros and cons of different aerobic activities. Explain which aerobic activity would be most effective, based on several factors (weather, equipment needed, time, etc.).

• World Languages: Read about two different cultures that use the same language. Explain how the different cultures impact the spoken and written language.