Writing from Sources
Writing from sources is one of the challenges that students face if they are to be Ready for College & Career. As literacy teachers, we have always encouraged students to respond to literature and write about what they read. The Common Core Standards, however, has made us rethink the idea of exactly what a textual source is. Instead of just thinking about print sources, such as novels, textbooks, articles, etc., we are expecting students to comprehend and assimilate many other types of sources into their writing.
What is a Source?
Textual Sources aren’t just print. If students can glean information from something, it can be considered a source. Artwork, photographs, websites, video, and other media may be sources.
Teaching Writing from Sources
Writing from sources means taking information and ideas from several complex texts to create an original complex text. This may include constructed responses (short written answers) or extended responses (longer, more developed pieces, such as essays) on Smarter Balanced assessments and prose constructed responses (similar to extended responses) on PARCC.
How do students write from sources? How do they organize their writing? What details do they include to prove that they deeply understand the text and the question? What lessons can guide students to successfully write from sources?
- close reading with a pencil
- paraphrasing
- direct quoting
- selecting the correct information
- unlocking the prompt or directions
- synthesizing
To write from sources, students must be able to read closely, ponder the big and supporting ideas in a text, and select the exact details to support their answers. Writing from sources requires students to analyze individual texts as well as compare and synthesize multiple sources. It also means increasing the amount of analytical writing that students do. The writing may be brief, focused pieces or long-term projects. Analytical writing includes opinion/argument or informative/explanatory writing.