How are you able to integrate writing into your math or science lesson? My students are going to have to write on next year's state standardized test and I would like to help get them more practice. I am not good at writing personally, but would like my 6th grade students to have more practice. I am looking for ideas at ways to put writing into some of my lessons. I would be grateful for any help on this topic. Thanks

one way to do it is to ask "explain why" questions. For example, if you are talking about osmosis and diffusion. Then you can ask a question like "if you place a cell in a saturated salt solution what will happen? Why?" Things like that. Emphasise essay questions and the like.

 

Of course, i don't really know how much writting you wish to incorparate. If you think that the need to learn how write longer papers on science, you could always make them give reports, write book reports, reports on some chemical that has been in the news, ect.

 

Or perhaps you could have them write ideas then have about current subjects. For instance, every week you could go over a current contraviersial topic in science and then have them turn in a 1-2 page paper on what they think about it. Topics that could be discussed are biological weapons, nuclear power plants, the pros and cons of alternative fuel sources, genetic engineering of foods, gene therapy, drugs (both legal and illegal -- or perhaps the line between the two). Things like that could lead to interesting discussions and, besides giving students more writting experience as well as critical thinking experience, would help them to see how much science plays a part in the world around them.

 

Anyways, i am not saying that i have the answer, but these are just a few ideas that popped into my head. Cool.