Grammatical Person and Formal Writing Informal
Defining Informal and Formal Writing
Informal Writing/Writing to Learn: Writing for the main purpose of finding out if students understand material, have completed reading, or done assigned work.
Formal Writing/Learning to Write: Writing for the main purpose of having the student present content from the discipline in a style and form that practitioners could readily recognize and accept.
Informal Writing
By articulating their analyses and opinions on paper, students digest information more quickly and are able to reflect critically on course content.
Theoretically, students end up improving their writing by writing a lot, but the main goal is to improve their learning.
Using writing activities in your classroom creates an active classroom with engaged students.
Characteristics of Informal Writing Activities
Collaborative, discussion-like, and/or loosely structured.
Other students and/or the teacher are the audience (or the assignment lacks an audience).
Activities may begin and end abruptly.
All informal writing can serve as prewriting for formal writing projects.
Examples: journals, in-class responses, and WebTycho conferences.
Formal Writing
Designed to help students communicate according to the professional standards of the discipline by acquiring certain discipline-based skills of communication.
Students learn that writing is diverse and that each career field has its own set of language conventions.
Formal writing assignments work to create a professionally-focused classroom.
Students end up learning both the content and the types of communication that convey that content in the field.
Characteristics of Formal Writing Assignments
Assignments conform to the conventions of the discipline in which you teach.
Audiences are often beyond the classroom (simulated or real industry audiences, etc.)
Assignments require particular language use and style (passive voice in some scientific writing, expected literature review styles in
Informal Writing/Writing to Learn: Writing for the main purpose of finding out if students understand material, have completed reading, or done assigned work.
Formal Writing/Learning to Write: Writing for the main purpose of having the student present content from the discipline in a style and form that practitioners could readily recognize and accept.
Informal Writing
By articulating their analyses and opinions on paper, students digest information more quickly and are able to reflect critically on course content.
Theoretically, students end up improving their writing by writing a lot, but the main goal is to improve their learning.
Using writing activities in your classroom creates an active classroom with engaged students.
Characteristics of Informal Writing Activities
Collaborative, discussion-like, and/or loosely structured.
Other students and/or the teacher are the audience (or the assignment lacks an audience).
Activities may begin and end abruptly.
All informal writing can serve as prewriting for formal writing projects.
Examples: journals, in-class responses, and WebTycho conferences.
Formal Writing
Designed to help students communicate according to the professional standards of the discipline by acquiring certain discipline-based skills of communication.
Students learn that writing is diverse and that each career field has its own set of language conventions.
Formal writing assignments work to create a professionally-focused classroom.
Students end up learning both the content and the types of communication that convey that content in the field.
Characteristics of Formal Writing Assignments
Assignments conform to the conventions of the discipline in which you teach.
Audiences are often beyond the classroom (simulated or real industry audiences, etc.)
Assignments require particular language use and style (passive voice in some scientific writing, expected literature review styles in