Response #3

This week's readings were about alternate methods of using text to learn.  "Write-to-learn" activities are a good teaching construct to engage students in their own learning.  Consisting of short writing responses, thought maps, or other exercises that use writing to encourage critical thinking, "write-to-learn" can be incorporated into almost any part of a curriculum.  If collected, they can be used to get an idea of students' grasp of the subject matter, or even graded, but the primary value is in encouraging the student to actively think about the topic, which increases retention.  I think this strategy will be valuable in the future, and plan to use it in my classroom when I become a teacher.