About VWC

The Vermont Writing Collaborative is a group of teachers in Vermont (and elsewhere!) whose mission is to help all students, K - 12, write thoughtfully and effectively.
The five founding members are: Jane Miller of Burlington, Karen Kurzman of Derby Line, Eloise Ginty of Thetford, Joey Hawkins of Strafford, and Diana Leddy of Strafford. Among us, we have over 130 years of public school teaching experience at all grade levels.
In the fall of 2008, we published a book through Authentic Education (with a foreword by Grant Wiggins) called Writing for Understanding:Using Backward Design to Help All Students Write Effectively.
Since then, we have offered courses and workshops in the principles of Writing for Understanding around Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and elsewhere.

Welcome, VWC members!

June, 2011 - what a grand Summer Institute! We held four different strands, and had the honor of working with both old friends and new ones. It was a joy!
Teachers are working on a whole new batch of Writing for Understanding sequences, and those will begin appearing here. If you're a course participant, thanks for posting and giving your thoughtful feedback.
If you're a VWC follower, your feedback is most welcome as well!


Thursday, July 21, 2011

Writing for Understanding Instruction
Teacher Plan

Teacher Sarah Chap
Class 8th grade Health/F&CS
Date Spring 2012
Writing genre Narrative (reflective)

Topic / Subject / Text
CENTRAL IDEAS
Content: Peer pressure to engage in risky behaviors is a powerful force. We can learn strategies to resist this pressure.
Reading: N/A
Writing: In reflective writing, students should draw from past experiences/previous knowledge in order to gain new insight.

Focusing Question
Reflect on a time you felt pressured to do something risky (illegal, dangerous, embarrassing, etc). If you were able to resist that pressure, reflect on why and how you were able to resist. If you gave in to pressure in that situation, reflect on why and how you could have resisted.

How did you (or could you have) successfully used strategies to resist (peer) pressure?

Focus (answer to focusing question)
Responses will vary
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. Joey HawkinsJuly 29, 2011 at 10:57 AM

    Posted by Joey, for Nicki Connolly
    You have a great focusing question and kids need to be aware of and have
    strategies to deal with peer pressure. Kudos to you for not being afraid
    to deal with a tough issue that should be at that age. That being said,
    putting myself back in jr. high, I would’ve felt this was an unsafe
    question (or perhaps, it was unsafe answering it) regardless if I’d done
    something wrong or not. For example, I wouldn’t have wanted to share
    something my friends (or so I thought at the time) tried to get me to do
    (especially if they’re in this class too). There’s no way I
    would’ve put something done on paper (then it’s “out there”) or
    would’ve shared it with a teacher. That being said, it’s great that
    you are trying to get kids to think about these risky situations and think
    about the choices, and make sure they have strategies to help them stay
    healthy. Is there another way (especially the first time you try this) to
    have students be reflective but without having to “admit” that they
    have done
    something risky or they were in a risky situation?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)