LA Pathway B: Enhance Writing Through Computational Practices (Overview)

These building blocks focus on ways to enhance student writing by applying computational thinking practices to the writing process.

Teachers already use a plethora of graphic organizers to support students' thinking around writing, especially during the pre-writing and revision stages of a writing process. To many teachers of writing, the approaches covered in this building block may remind them of approaches already used in the class such as annotating mentor texts or using tools like graphic organizers. Examining mentor texts or completing graphic organizers assist students throughout the writing process, but they are not the end product themselves. This same rule of thumb holds true for the approaches covered in these building blocks: It is important to explain to students why they might consider using these approaches, but, at the end of the day, it is all about enhancing writing.

This building block highlights three approaches to integrating computational thinking in the Language Arts (LA) classroom:

B1. Enhance writing by using algorithmic logic (i.e. explicitly identifying the use of sequences and patterns) to deepen attention to structure, patterns, and revision.

B2. Deepen understanding of how writing works by decomposing texts and abstracting explicit structures.

B3. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using computational thinking to bolster the quality and process of writing.

The following steps in this project will break down each of the three practices a bit further and provide brief examples of how each practice can take form in a classroom.

The second project in this building block will guide educators through a more in-depth language arts activity covering integration practice B1.

Practice B1 focuses on using algorithms to:

• Create flowcharts, storyboards or other representational forms to prepare to write.
  

• Identify patterns in writing by creating and refining written algorithms, pseudocode or flowcharts.

• Support self and peer feedback by using algorithmic logic (i.e. if/then) to focus on which revisions to make to writing and why.

Practice in Action

A pre-writing activity for students could have students create a storyboard to prepare for writing personal narratives. Students could review storyboard panels and identify any components that may be missing from their writing plan.

Practice B2 focuses on deepening understanding of how writing works by decomposing texts and abstracting explicit structures to:

• Abstract (annotate) from a text's broad structural components (i.e. introduction, conclusion, scenes, key events) in order to identify where such uses occur in the text
• Decompose (annotate) a text for the specific use of language (i.e. keywords, transitional clauses, quotations) in order to identify where such uses occur in the text

Practice in Action

By examining a mentor short story, students create a list or flowchart of the key plot points in the short story. Students then take their flowchart or list and storyboard an original short story that follows a similar plot structure. Each student receives one of three letters (A, B or C). Students in Group A just write the introduction and conflict of their original story. Group B students write rising action and climax. Group C students write falling action and resolution. The following day, students randomly swap stories with someone not in their group and determine what parts of the story they need to write next based on the specific use of transition words. For example, by examining keywords, a student in group A determines she received a story with falling action and resolution so she writes the prior sections focused on an introduction and climax.