Chapter 14 page 334
Figure 14.6 A handout to record transfer of story-writing strategies to other classes
Source: National Center for Accelerating Student Learning, http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/casl/powwww.html
In later classes, students discussed with the teacher when they used their strategy, how they used
them, and how they helped their partner. In this way, teachers keep a strong focus on transfer throughout
the instructional period. Students help figure out how they can transfer the writing strategies they are
learning. Then they try using the strategies in other classes, and they come back to discuss with the teacher
how it went.
As an example, consider how a pair of students might think about transferring the POW strategies
to writing reports of experiments they conduct in science class. Students might note that they could use the
“Organize my notes” strategy to think up and organize ideas for their lab reports. But they also realize that
the questions they have learned for organizing their notes to write stories and persuasive essays do not work
for lab reports. (The “WWW, What=2, How=2” strategy is for stories, not lab reports.) So they make a list
of new questions to help them organize lab reports:
a. What did you do in the experiment?
b. What happened?
c. What new ideas does this experiment give you?
After trying out these strategies, students discuss what they tried with the teacher, and how well it worked.
The teacher may make suggestions at this point, and different student pairs can share their ideas with each
other through the class discussion.
Teachers modeling strategies. Teacher modeling is an important component of SRSD. When
introducing all the strategies to students, teachers model for students how to use the strategies. For
example, when modeling the use of the story-planning questions in Figure 14.5a, the teacher asks herself all