Michael Sparks, Maria Garcia, Tina Cruz, Sarah Suire 1

Annotated Bibliography

Our team is studying Writing Across the Curriculum and how can we include writing in

all subjects or lessons as educators. Our intent as a team is to bring awareness to include writing

in “secondary” subjects such as art, physical education, music or health. Our collection of

resources will help educators implement writing activities into their lesson plans. Some ways to

use writing in “secondary” subjects is to include a reflection of newly learned material, pre-

writing before a new topic to see what students know, or during a lesson to help further reinforce

the lesson being taught. Overall we found many articles to help us with cross-curriculum lessons

and even studies showing how they can really help our students. When we use this method of

teaching we are able to incorporate different subjects which can help out many students. The

information gathered helps to identify and understand issues in the classroom where writing is

supplemented in a variety of ways, giving our students a well-balanced education. The solutions

we found further add to our teaching pedagogy techniques including writing in a visual language,

visual aids can help support written language, give students time to talk with strategies such as

think-pair-share or chunk and chew, create time on a regular basis for writer’s workshop that

follows a type of writing process, include some kind of movement in the lesson to help student

refocus and provide feedback and monitor student writing when using journals. These sources

help readers understand why incorporating writing in other subjects can give students explicit

instruction. It can help students further develop skills to improve their comprehension and

critical thinking.

Alber, R. (2014). How important is teaching literacy in all content areas? Retrieved from

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/literacy-instruction-across-curriculum-importance
Michael Sparks, Maria Garcia, Tina Cruz, Sarah Suire 2

Literacy simply used to be just reading and writing. Fast forward to today and it has

evolved into reading, writing, listening and speaking. The author breaks down speaking,

writing and reading by giving students strategies/activities so they can take responsibility

for their literacy skills.

Alber is an instructor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education while also serving as a

consulting editor for Edutopia. Edutopia has been around since 1991, providing K-12

education through project-based learning, social and emotional learning and access to

new technology. She wrote this article because Writing Across the Curriculum is

becoming a popular topic in education that all districts want to incorporate into their

curriculum. Her article was originally published in August of 2010 but was updated in

January of 2014. Her article was insightful because she quoted a book by Richard Vaca;

Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum that is another

resource for Writing Across the Curriculum.

This is a useful article to supplement what teachers are already molding their lesson plans

too. As Alber linked many useful strategies, teachers could use them to further enhance

their lessons and promote accountability towards their students.

Bartelo, D. and Morton, R. (June 1989). Iconology: an alternate form of writing. Writing Across

the Curriculum, 1, 28-32, retrieved from

https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/journal/vol1/bartelo.pdf
Michael Sparks, Maria Garcia, Tina Cruz, Sarah Suire 3

In this book, Bartelo and Morton cover writing for artists including their approach. They

discover that art is essentially writing or an alternate form of the visual language.

In the chapters, Bartelo and Morton discover that writing and art are both languages.

Writing uses words and art uses expressive forms. It’s the idea that there are many

different forms of writing that are significant and writing is just one of these forms.

The authors' credibility is reaffirmed by their educational background. Robert Morton

was Chair of the Art Department where he taught courses on sculpture and design.

Dennise Bartelo was an associate professor in the Education Department, a charter

member of the Writing Task Force and one of the editors of this journal. The purpose of

this journal was to discuss different forms of writing and the audience would possibly be

educators and education students studying art as a visual language. The genre of this

exert is a scholarly journal with a general academic language being used.

This information is useful in creating our unit plan, Writing Across the Curriculum

because it gives us an artists and educators point of view. It can be useful for educators

studying this specific topic and help implement both arts and writing in their creation of

unit plans.

Baxter, G., Bass, K., & Glaser, R. (2000). An Analysis of notebook writing in elementary

science classrooms. Retrieved from:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kristin_Bass/publication/242289206_An_Analysis_
Michael Sparks, Maria Garcia, Tina Cruz, Sarah Suire 4

of_Notebook_Writing_in_Elementary_Science_Classrooms/links/54d1286e0cf28959aa7

a83c6/An-Analysis-of-Notebook-Writing-in-Elementary-Science-Classrooms.pdf

Gail Baxter, Kristin Bass, and Robert Glaser conducted a study in three fifth grade

classrooms to discover the relationship between the content of science notebooks and the

classroom context that it is used for through hands-on instruction. It shows that science

journals are a great tool to help students such as when doing investigations, procedures,

and problem-solving strategies. The journals give students an opportunity to learn about

science while writing about it.

Baxter has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, he has done research in many areas, and is

currently Co-Director Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education.

Bass has over 20 years of experience in teaching and educational research. Glaser was an

educational psychologist who made significant contributions to many theories of learning

and instruction. The purpose of this article is to tell educators how incorporating writing

into science can be helpful for students.

This source provides the results from the study in which students were able to further

succeed in science through writing. Students received explicit instruction through science

lessons as writing in their journals was promoted.

Blythman, M., Mullin, O. and Orr, S. (2003). Designing your writing/writing your design: Art
Michael Sparks, Maria Garcia, Tina Cruz, Sarah Suire 5

and Design Students Talk About the Process of Writing and the Process of Design.

Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/atd/visual/orr_blythman_mullin.cfm, Austin

TX: the University of Texas at Austin.

The educators in this paper discuss and identify how students process images and writing

in the visual culture of today. The research of both US and UK students help identify

current pedagogy using visual aids but also suggests changes to methods are needed.

The author's credibility is supported by their current work as educators in their own field

at the University of Texas Austin, University of Arts London, and School of Arts York

St. John College in the UK. These practitioners are focused on communicating with other

educators and people alike on how visual aids provide purpose in both writing and art.

The form of this information is that of research of the educators in general and academic

language. The results of this study can help us understand how to design lessons to

support students in both art and writing.

Overall this source provides effectiveness and usefulness to the educator community by

giving relevant data on students learning styles. This is definitely a must read on the topic

of art and writing in the classroom and can be used as the main source for information

gathered from students.

Kuta, K. W. (2008). Reading and writing to learn: Strategies across the curriculum. Retrieved

from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhcl/reader.action?docID=492025&ppg=16
Michael Sparks, Maria Garcia, Tina Cruz, Sarah Suire 6

This “activity” book is jammed pack of literacy activities to help students learn strategies

and while giving them practice. Activities are grouped into three parts: reading to learn,

reading and writing to learn, and writing to learn, with 20 activities each.

The author, Katherine Wiesolek Kuta is a reading specialist at Maine Township High

School and is the author of two successful Idea Press books. The activities in this book

have been used in real classrooms by teachers in various content areas at various grades.

Each section is research-based backed by varying experts specifically in each field

(writing, reading, & brain-based learning). Kuta put this book together because she saw

the demand for activities that will help the students while also motivating and help them

connect with their class to function as a team.

This book will help supplement the teachers lesson plans to give the students more

practice with the strategy they’re working on. Each part is broken down by strategy so

finding the most useful activity is easier.

Milford, T., & Harrison, G. L. (2010). Using the please strategy with a struggling middle

school writer with a disability. Intervention in School and Clinic, 45(5), 326-332.

https://journals-sagepub-com.libproxy.uhcl.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/1053451209359080

This article is about a middle school student with a chronic illness that fell behind in

school and an intervention that helped her gain ground on her learning. Todd Milford and

Gina Harrison use an intervention called self-regulated strategy (SRSD), more

specifically the PLEASE Strategy Plus Spelling too help raise Cassie (student) to the

appropriate grade level she needed to be at. Throughout this article, both authors break

down how the PLEASE strategy was used with models and examples.

Milford is a doctoral candidate in educational psychology at the University of Victoria,

Canada. And Harrison is an assistant professor in special education at the University of

Victoria, Canada where her research focuses on the cognitive and linguistic aspects of

reading and writing difficulties as well as effective assessment and intervention for

literacy-based learning disabilities. They wrote this article because children in special

education need help as well, and the success of this study could be helpful for other

students across the globe. The authors quoted V. Berninger, “This approach has been

used effectively with students with and without learning disabilities who are experiencing

writing difficulties, irrespective of whether their writing problems were based in the

lower (i.e., mechanics) or higher level (i.e., generation of ideas, planning, organization,

revising) aspects of writing.”

The SRSD approach helps the student self-regulate their work by (a) incorporating

strategic knowledge by teaching strategies to accomplish an academic task, (b) enhances

self-regulation through goal setting and self-monitoring, (c) improves content knowledge

by focusing on what students need to write about, and (d) improves motivation through

an I can do attitude. The strategy that helped Cassie in this study was the PLEASE

strategy, and any educator could use this same technique for an accommodation for a

student or a small group.

Peha, S. (2008). Teaching that makes sense inc. Writing Across the Curriculum. Retrieved from

https://www.ttms.org/PDFs/06%20Writing%20Across%20the%20Curriculum%20v001%

20(Full).pdf, https://www.ttms.org/steve_peha/steve_peha.htm

In this teaching website, Peha gives out many guides, posters, lessons, and organizers that

help teachers teach effective writing. The Writing Across the Curriculum full version

goes into great detail on why it is important for all teachers to implement in the

classroom.

Reviewing the information on this site will help guide us in teaching writing effectively

despite what grade or subject we teach. Writing is one of the most effective and common

ways to communicate. Peha gives us the tools to help teach our students the purpose of

writing.

The author is President of Teaching that Makes Sense Incorporated, educator, and

graduate of Boston University. He has his own website dedicated to helping teachers

implement this curriculum. He is the Founder of Teaching that Makes Sense and also has

written several books on this topic. The literature is geared in helping teachers understand

how writing can be used in all subjects. The form of this information is a website with

free downloadable handouts and books for anyone looking for this information. The

language is in general format and is dated from 2003, but is still relevant information to

help in classrooms today.

The overall effectiveness and usefulness of this book is an essential part of a successful

curriculum. It should be supplemented as needed in order to understand specific

situations or details that you come across when working this into your teaching strategy.

Romano, L., Papa, L., & Saulle, E. (n.d.). Awesome lesson ideas to integrate science across the

curriculum. Retrieved from https://www.teachhub.com/integrate-science-across-

curriculum

This article breaks down how to add science into cross-curriculum. It breaks down

different ways to do so and the different parts of it. Within the different parts, they add in

examples for what you can do. They show you how to do it from all the subjects even in

PE.

Loriana Romano, Elita Saulle and Lisa Papa teach elementary with the Toronto Catholic

District School Board. They run a blog together called “Teaching Rocks!”. They write

many blogs to help teachers with different ways of teaching. Their teaching styles seem

to be engaging for students and are all current. They make sure their students learn but,

use creativity and critical thinking. These teachers seem to be very passionate about their

work and being able to help other teachers.

This article talks about bringing science into cross-curriculum but, it can just be a start for

how to bring other subjects into cross-curriculum. Cross-curriculum could help many
Michael Sparks, Maria Garcia, Tina Cruz, Sarah Suire 10

students learn and grow. We could use this in our classrooms to help reach many more

kids.

Shepardson, D., & Britsch, S. (2000). The role of children's journals in elementary school

science activities. Journal Of Research In Science Teaching. Retrieved from:

https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy.uhcl.edu/doi/epdf/10.1002/1098-

2736%28200101%2938%3A1%3C43%3A%3AAID-TEA4%3E3.0.CO%3B2-I

This article is based on a study done by Daniel Shepardson and Susan Britsch. Their r

research was done in a kindergarten and fourth grade classroom to determine how

using science journals can help students better understand what they are learning. The

students are able to write on their journals based on their personal interpretations.

Shepardson and Britsch are colleagues for the College of Education in Purdue University

and have over 25 years of experience in the education field. Shepardson was a middle

school science teacher, an instructor for elementary science methods, assistant and

associate professor of Science Education, and is currently Professor of Geoenvironmental

and Science Education in Purdue University. Britsch was a nursery school teacher,

associate professor and is currently a professor in Curriculum & Instruction, Literacy and

Language Education in Purdue University.

The article is written for educators in order to inform them on how writing can be

incorporated in other subjects such as in science. The information provided by the study
Michael Sparks, Maria Garcia, Tina Cruz, Sarah Suire 11

provides strategies for teachers on how to include writing with science. When teachers

check journals and ask questions to students it shows effective results. The authors

elaborate and give examples on how teachers can ask questions.