Making Sense, Shaping Meaning: Writing in the Context of a Capacity-Based Approach to Learning

This book is for elementary and secondary teachers who are interested in the power that the act of writing offers to writers to bring what they "know" into a sharper focus and thereby extend their perception and understanding beyond that current knowing. Since working with James Britton and Nancy Martin on the UK Schools Council Writing Across the Curriculum Project in the late 60s and early 70s, she has been a proponent of writing as a learning process that can help students of all ages reach for and grasp further understanding-in the exploration of personal experience, a literary text, an investigation in science, or a problem-solving challenge in mathematics. She is interested in how all students, whatever their apparent capabilities, can be encouraged to shape meaning into a finished "product"-a story, poem, or nonfiction piece-they can justifiably be proud of. "Making Sense, Shaping Meaning" is for teachers who share these concerns, especially those who believe in the capacities that any learner has to "make sense" if given the confidence-and the strategies-to go ahead and do it. The book spells out a basic philosophy and shows it in practice through numerous examples of successful attempts at making sense and shaping meaning throughout the grades.