Writing Across the Curriculum

Practicum Project
Lindsey Hornbuckle
EDAS 5820
University of Tennessee Chattanooga
Dr. Petzko
April 15, 2015

Writing Across the Curriculum

Practicum Project: Writing Across the Curriculum in the Freshman Academy

Statement of the Problem & Literature Support
After reviewing TVAAS data, EOC scores, 9th Writing Assessment and MIST practice
assessment, there are several gaps among the levels of students as freshmen. Research has
proven that a students success during his freshman year may determine if he graduates or drops
out. Educators are increasingly focusing on the ninth grade as the year that determines whether
a young person will move on or drop out of school. (Willens, 2013). The most noticeable gaps
in the data were in the lower and higher ends of the spectrum. The lower students were not being
successful due to as a lack of understanding and ability to read and write on grade-level, and the
higher students were not showing growth due to a lack of being challenged through the
curriculum. The middle grouping of students is meeting grade-level standards but not exceeding
them. I believe that having students write in every core class will help them be more successful
not only on these assessments but in class as well.
So far in this project, I have been utilizing three texts and waiting on a fourth from my
instructional coach. The texts are: Best Practices in Writing Instruction, Common Core Writing
Companion, Writing in the Content Areas. All three of these texts confirm my choice for my
project because of the emphasis on the importance of reading and writing and how they apply to
every content- not just English. Basic knowledge and information given is simply that if a
student cannot read, he/she cannot write. If that student cannot read and write, how is that
student supposed to be successful in school by state standards? The first text, Best Practices in
Writing Instruction, is utilized to help prepare the teachers for implementing this new program
and why. Regardless of the content area, students need to be able to respond in written form to
any question given and support that answer. The text, Writing in the Content Areas, is used to
help word examples for the specific content. For example, the words chosen to ask for a written

Writing Across the Curriculum

response will vary from subject to subject. In science, words like prove and hypothesize will
be used in responses, but in English words like analyze and synthesize will be used. By
helping students become more familiar with vocabulary will help increase reading and writing
knowledge and scores. The Common Core Writing Companion is a text is being used to help
those responses go deeper in thinking and response instead of shallow or surface level. This text
is also being used to help grow this curriculum when the reading and writing span across
multiple content areas. For example, the goal is to have students read, analyze, and correlate two
pieces of text from opposite content areas and use them to support an idea or topic. The goal is
for students to step away from the literal questions to the interpretive and universal questions and
support their answers with textual evidence from what they have read. This will carry them far
beyond the classroom in understanding this process. The final text I will be using is Writing
Across the Curriculum. Within its pages are sample ideas of implementing this exact plan.
Goals and Alignment
My Writing Across the Curriculum project specifically aligns with Standard C: Professional
Learning and Growth. This standard explains, An ethical and effective instructional leader
develops capacity of all educators by designing, facilitating, and participating in collaborative
learning informed by multiple sources of data.
The first goal of this project was to get teachers involved, supportive, and aware of the need
that our students have for writing in other areas in addition to writing in English classes. The
second goal was to make the writing projects relative and reasonable for both the teachers and
students, so nothing was viewed as additional or overwhelming. The third goal was to increase
students levels of writing, and thus reading, based upon the data and their own perspectives.
Finally, the fourth goal was to help increase student scores and school scores on the standardized
MIST Writing Assessment. This project aligns with the following ELCC Standards:

Writing Across the Curriculum

ELCC 2.2: Candidates understand and can create and evaluate a comprehensive, rigorous, and
coherent curricular and instructional school program.
ELCC 2.3: Candidates understand and can develop and supervise the instructional and leadership
capacity of school staff.
ELCC 2.4: Candidates understand and can promote the most effective and appropriate
technologies to support teaching and learning in a school environment.
Summary of Implementation
The original implementation idea (proposal): I have been meeting with the instructional
coach, media specialist, academy principal and school principal concerning the data from
different state and local tests. The initial stage in this implementation is to focus on the freshman
academy and its students. I met with the teachers of the core subjects: math, English, science and
history to discuss the content of the reading and writing assignments. My plan is to spread out
this curriculum over two weeks (two times per month). For example, science could be every
other Monday, math could be every other Tuesday, History could be every other Wednesday, and
English could be every other Thursday, with Friday being a make up for anyone who missed.
The reason I would spread the days out is because our freshman students are leveled by ability
based on TCAP scores, so I do not want students to be completing this assignment on the same
day in each class. I am creating a rubric that covers the basics of writing (grammar, spelling,
format, and content) that each teacher will use to grade the assignments. The assignments will be
used for a grade in the class, as well as, to show and measure growth.
The initial assignments will just be reading and analyzing texts specific to the content of the
class it is given; however, as the semester progresses, I plan to have the students read/analyze
from various informational texts pulling from other contents. The goal is to gradually push the
students reading and writing skills to higher levels. The goal is to eventually implement this
program into the entire school to help all students in the various assessments- even the ACT.

Writing Across the Curriculum

The follow-through implementation: This project is actually just the beginning of this process
for my school. I am working with my assistant principal to create a framework for our academy
to implement Writing Across the Curriculum for all levels. This project did not completely go the
way I originally intended for it to go in my brain during the creation process and during the carry
out process. I originally met with my principal concerning this project contemplating Writing
Across the Curriculum for the entire school; however, he advised against that because of the size
of our school. He referred me to the assistant principal of the Freshman Academy to discuss the
best way to proceed. After that meeting, it was decided to trial this project for just the specific
team I am on. Our students are leveled by ability, and I teach lower performing students and
students with disabilities. Once a specific direction was decided, the implementation was
underway.
November/December 2014: PLC meetings to discuss implementation and specifics of writing
tasks. A lot of collaboration concerning what this will look like in the classroom setting and how
often. A specific writing assessment for this project was to be given two times per month in each
class. Math teachers explained that they would have the students answer and explain their
reasoning of a word problem in paragraph form. The science teacher would have students read
different science articles and compare and contrast the two. We all agreed to add that students
need to show support for their writings using in-text citations. We also agreed that I would create
a common rubric that would be universal for each of our classes- looking for the same
information.
January-March 2015: There were several opportunities to assign a specific writing task for
this project due to the change of the semesters. The science teacher said that all his students
struggled with writing, and the math teachers agreed. We discussed the rubric, and I gave them a
copy. We discussed how the rubric was uniform for all of us to grade and reference that no one

Writing Across the Curriculum

had to be an English teacher to check for basic grammar. I explained that on the MIST
Assessment the more in-text citations they could use and support the better. They would need to
focus on spelling and basic grammar rules. The project continued as planned with the teachers
continuing to have students write more in various formats whether that is assignments,
assessments, references in research, etc.
April 2015: This was a time to reflect upon the initial work conducted over the past few
months. The strengths of this project was to show teachers, other than English, how they are able
to implement writing into their curriculum that has benefits for their classes as well. The math
and science teachers were able to bring samples of their writing assignments to show how what
the students are learning in English can be carried over and retaught in math and science. We
were also able to begin discussions how these writing assignments can be collaborative
assignments between the contents because if English is focusing on subject/verb agreement, then
the other core subjects can grade for all the basics and content with a specific focus on
subject/verb agreement. There are endless reinforcement possibilities because the English classes
can also discuss specific math and science curriculum endeavors in English writing assignments.
We also discussed the possibilities of an overall Freshman Writing Portfolio that each student
will have a compilation of the work that has been done throughout freshman year.
Results
There are a couple of ways to measure this projects results and progress. As far as measuring
the freshmen students alone, I have their 8th grade TCAP, Discovery, and writing scores. These
scores also came with projections of what their scores may be on the states End of Course
assessment. If growth is shown on the End of Course scores, some of that can be attributed to the
reading and writing practice. Also, the freshmen take a writing assessment in February, and those
scores can be measured against the 8th grade projected scores.

Writing Across the Curriculum

Another way to measure their growth and progress is through the bi-weekly assignments.
Those assignments will become progressively more difficult, and there success is easily
measured since it will be by the same rubric each time across all content areas. I, personally, will
be pulling some sample papers from different sub-groups to examine growth along the way. This
will also help the teachers determine if their students are stronger in writing within one content
area over another. Any student can simply guess on a multiple choice exam, but a written
response must show knowledge and understanding with textual support.
Next, one way to measure this growth over the students high school careers, if implemented
throughout the school, is to chart students scores on the writing assessments each year. Their
End of Course or MIST Writing Assessment scores can be measured year to year as well. The
school can measure the effectiveness of this program by viewing ACT scores, graduation and
drop-out rates, state assessment scores, enrollment in upper level classes like AP and dual
enrollment, etc. If students can read well and on grade level, as well as, write just as effectively,
the school and student body cannot do anything but improve.
The actual results measured for these beginning stages was through student and teacher
surveys (and discussions) about the growth of writing skills by writing in all content areas. The
results are charted below:
I also believe by having the administration want to work with me to help create a larger
framework and lead discussions based upon the noticeable progress made when they conduct
evaluations has given me some insight that they see the potential this process can have to bring
positive change and growth to the entire school and its writing scores. The overall success of this
program will be able to be measured over the course of three years to adequately see growth and
progress of one specific class and those who follow.
Reflection

Writing Across the Curriculum

Given the opportunity to do this project or something similar again, I would because its
intended goal is to benefit students and their success in the area of writing. Reading and writing
well and efficiently is something that all students will be able to benefit from no matter what
direction their lives may go with their career choices.
To formally implement a Writing Across the Curriculum program, there are several things
I would do to make it better. First, I would want to begin meeting and planning at the end of the
year and through the summer with those stakeholders involved: administration, teachers,
instructional coaches, etc. I would also like to have writing scores and more forms of data to look
at during the planning process, so the most effective plan could be created and implemented
among the stakeholders. I realize that some data for the upcoming ninth graders will be their
eighth grade scores, and those scores will not be released during the planning stages. There will
need to be a vertical alignment between to the two grade levels and transitions to help make the
program effective. Second, I believe there needs to be more input from all teachers involved.
This first round of the program, the teachers initially viewed it as another thing for them to do,
but that was my fault because I should have had more of a framework in place to give them and
more resources to show them that it did not have to be created but working with the current
curriculum of the class. Third, I would have given each teacher the grading rubric first. I am not
really sure why I waited to do that, but I did. After a couple of monthly meetings, the science
teacher brought up the issue of grading. I had explained that each content teacher would grade
for correctness, but that they would need to grade for basic grammar: spelling, punctuation,
indention, complete sentences, etc. The rubric just keeps a consistently among the teachers and
students.
The greatest lesson I learned from this is ways to earn teacher buy-in because it is
extremely difficult for teachers to want to do something, even if they know it may be what is

Writing Across the Curriculum

best for students. Through this process, upon initial discussion, teachers attitudes were very
apathetic to this project; however, when I approached them with questions and their input, they
were more willing to participate and realized that it was simply adjusting to lessons and methods
they already use. I also learned the need for initial student surveys at the beginning of the project
to accurately reflect on their successes in their own eyes. Again, the data from the Writing
Assessment will not be made available until the summer. I also learned that there must be longterm goals along with the short-term goals because to fully implement a complete program, it
will not be accomplished in one year to fully determine if it successful and should continue. As
long as teachers see and understand the importance of students improving in their writing, then
students will also see the importance, and eventually, it will become part of the schools culture
and vision.

Appendix A
Writing Across the Curriculum
The post-survey conducted with the students who piloted the Writing Across the Curriculum
project was completed anonymously by fifty-seven students. The survey had eleven questions
that were multiple choice to assess the students perspectives of how their writing may have
changed and improved over the course of the year. These questions asked about the frequency
and validity of the writing assignments in all core classes: English, math, science and history.

Writing Across the Curriculum

10

How often is the following statement true for you? "I like to write."
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%

How often do you write in your Language Arts or English class?

70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

When you write assignments for your Englishclass, how often do you write about something you have read?
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%

Writing Across the Curriculum

11

How often do you write in subjects other than Language Arts or English?
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%

How often do you work in pairs or small groups to discuss other's writing in subjects other than English?
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%

Writing Across the Curriculum

12

How frequently do you make notes or an outline before you begin writing a paper?
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%

How often do you work to edit or change a previous piece of writing?

30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%

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13

How often does your teacher provide individual feedback on your writing?
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%

Do you write more in your English class than you did in your 8th grade English class?
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Yes

No

Do you write more in your History, Math and Science classes than you did in your 8th grade classes?
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Yes

No

Writing Across the Curriculum

14

Do you believe you are a better writer at the end of your freshman year than your 8th grade year?
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Yes

No

Writing Across the Curriculum

15
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