Writing to learn is an interesting concept that according to both readings, is a great way to get students engaged in learning different content areas like math, science, and social studies, while honing in on their writing skills and improving literacy.

       One idea that the authors posed in Improving Adolescent Literacy that stood out to me was the idea of writing to learn being completely different from traditional writing in an English or language arts class, in that the writing is not meant to be a "process" piece, but rather a "catalyst for further learning- an opportunity for students to recall, clarify, and question." In my own experience, writing in content area classrooms has been one of two situations: a quick fill-in-the-blank worksheet, or a long research paper. Neither of these two assignments helps to focus the student on exactly what he or she is learning, the processes that occur during learning, or how the student learns individually. This idea of getting the student to refocus their thoughts or inspire thoughts seems to be daunting when trying to fit in so much information that the student needs to know in a content area class, but I feel it is a really important way to gage how the students respond to learning in the classroom. The authors in both passages gave several great examples of writing to learn exercises such as entry/exit slips, framed paragraphs, learning logs, and biopoems. 

      Another idea that Knipper and Duggan mentioned that I think is really important is the idea of getting students to really focus and condense what they know into concise pieces of information that can be remembered with less difficulty and help make connections to other small pieces of information stored in the brain. For example, generative sentences (pg. 143) require students to create a sentence based on a certain word and a certain sentence make up. It can be very challenging for students, and gives them an opportunity to show exactly what they know in correct grammar usage. I also love the idea of power writing. When I was in high school, my AP Language teacher gave us a lot of these writing activities based on a particular sentence starter or topic, for example, "It was a fine day outside..." I really liked not only the opportunity to just write whatever came to mind, but it gave me a personal challenge each time to increase my writing fluency and be able to think quicker and write better. 

     As I read about all of these instructional techniques and imagined using them in my future classroom, I kept wondering two main things. "How am I going to have time to incorporate this activity along with everything else I must accomplish?" When I have been in classrooms observing, it seems like the teacher is always pressed for time, and I worry that although the ideas are great ones, how realistic is it that I am able to use them daily, or periodically. And, "how am I going to make this be beneficial to my students and use it to get them, especially older students, engaged?" I worry that they may see the activity is just a quick little bell ringer, or something meaningless. I wouldn't want them to complete the activity just to get it over with, but how do I convey its usefulness and encourage concentration and interaction?