Writing in math and science

Teaching Pre K-8, Jan 1996 by Manning, Maryann, Manning, Gary

Writing is a power tool for thinking and learning in math and science; it will also bring about improvement in students' writing abilities. The major purpose of writing in math d science, however, is to help students clarify and extend their knowledge in these subject areas.

Students elaborate their knowledge and clarify for themselves what they know as they express their thoughts through writing. This is true even when they might not be completely correct or on target.

When teachers observe students' writing, they can make an evaluation of students' thinking that may be useful for supporting future learning.

In addition to writing, there are, of course, many other ways to express ideas, including speaking, drama, music, art and movement. In this column, however, we will only address writing.

There are a number of ways to incorporate writing in the content areas of math and science. Let's review a few of them.

Content journals. In last month's column, we briefly addressed content journals as a way of helping children develop content literacy. Because many of our teacher friends find content journals an effective and easy way to incorporate writing in the content areas, we're including them again in this month's column along with a few additional suggestions.

Content journals provide a way for students to review or interpret information discussed in class or read in a text. The journals can be a spiral-ring or three-ring notebook, or simply a few pages stapled together.

You might ask students to write in the journals during. class. Sometimes a specific directive is given, such as asking them to explain in writing how they solved a math problem. In science, they could be asked to record the results of their experiments.

At the beginning of class, you might ask questions like these: "What do you know about the topic well be discussing and reading about today?" "What would you like to know?" At the end of class, you might give other general directives, asking students to respond in writing to such questions as "What did you learn today?" "What would you like to know that wasn't discussed in class today?"

As students write in their journals, you'll probably want to read their entries and at times write a response. Many teachers tell us that they need to respond to students' entries at least once a week or their students lose interest in the journals. Carrying on a dialogue with students in their journals is time consuming, but it's well worth the effort; it offers you another way to communicate with them.

Written conversations. Another way to clarify and extend learning is to have students respond to one another in writing. As a teacher, you direct students, working in pairs, to ask their partners to write a comment or question about the class discussion or about something from their text.

At times, you might want to offer suggestions such as the following: "Discuss with one another what the terms 'parallel' and 'perpendicular' mean." ... "Explain why you think our number system is base 10."

One student writ the suggestion and then hands the paper to his or her partner, who responds in writing. This process continues for a given period of time.

Most teachers begin by asking both partners to initiate the writing and then exchange papers for the written responses. By using two papers instead of one, both students engage in writing at the same time, rather than one student being inactive while waiting for the other student finish writing the response.

Letter writing. Most teachers incorporate letter writing in their language arts curriculum.

Sometimes it's addressed as an exercise in learning how to write letters, and students often see no real purpose for the activity other than to complete the assignment. This is worth keeping in mind; it's a good example of what not to do when having students engage in letter writing in science and math classes.

Many of you are already capitalization on letter writing through E-mail in various facets of your program, including math and science. Thus, you're aware of the value of letter writing in different areas of the curriculum.

In either math or science class, for example, students might write letters to someone in another school in which they ask questions related to a particular topic, or they might respond to other students' questions.

Informal reports. As you know, nonfiction is a neglected genre in some elementary classrooms, but it's not neglected in your classroom.

You work hard to help your students become lifelong inquirers. You expect them to be curious, ask questions and then research enthusiastically and diligently to obtain answers. You create the conditions for their success as inquirers in math and science, as you do in all content areas.

You realize that before students can write reports, they need to low something about the topic. Therefore, you provide an abundance of research materials, including books, manes, records, tapes and real objects.

You guide them as researchers, encouraging them to work with one another. And you demonstrate various research techniques. For example, if you expect them to take notes you first demote note-taking.