Introduction

**Infusing Writing in the Content Areas**

//"A young author develops writing wings. Each takes a unique learning journey. Each one writes the best that he can. Why compare one against the other? Each writer is unique. Each passage is special. Each author's flight is limitless."//

**Introduction:** //Every teacher is a writing teacher. In the differentiated writing classroom, teachers work with each student's unique needs. All students learn to apply information, to think and write critically, to think and write creatively, and to solve problems in their world. These skills develop self-directed learners and confident writers.//


 * Chapman and King provide a brief introduction that includes and explains each of the chapter’s contents that can be found throughout their book, “Differentiated Instructional Strategies for Writing in the Content Areas.” Its contents comprise of :
 * **Creating a climate for writing**
 * **Knowing the writer**
 * **Diagnosing and assessing writers**
 * **Differentiating the writing process**
 * **Instructional strategies and activities for the differentiated writing classroom**
 * **Curriculum approaches for the differentiated writing classroom**


 * I quickly noticed the ideas and messages this book had to offer were riddled with expressivist views and undertones. Many ideas I felt related to topics that authors such as Elbow, Murray and Fulkerson have all discussed within their works. One particular section contained in the introduction that I especially found most helpful was a graph listing all content areas of curriculum, followed by numerous examples of how writing can be used in each. For example, under “math” some writing activities included were data interpretations, word problems, diagrams, directions, written formulas, labels, graphs, etc.


 * The introduction as a whole was very optimistic in the sense that it gives current and future teachers the inspiration to make an important and crucial impact on their students’ writing. It explains the importance of differentiated instruction because all it takes is one stimulating assignment to encourage a student to become a confident author. Again, this paralleled greatly to Fulkerson’s four philosophies, as well as Kinneavy’s basic aims of discourse, and Tobin’s belief in letting students write about topics they are most interested in.


 * **Their Mission:** Chapman and King have two clear and defined tasks they wish to fulfill upon completion of this book; one being to “[t]each students how to use writing as an effective learning tool and [two], to encourage and assist all teachers as they use writing as a valuable component of instruction in the differentiated classroom” (Chapman and King, 8).