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Cross Curriculum Writing

Often teachers struggle to fit in all the subjects into one school day. I have

learned from various classrooms I have observed and been a part of that teachers have

begun to incorporate writing into others subject areas. This way of teaching caused me

to wonder if this new change in teaching was changing how students were learning a

concept. I decided to research the benefits of integrating writing into other content areas

as well as different activities you can implement in your classroom to help your students

be more successful and have a deeper understanding of each subject.

Making a connection through cross-curriculum teaching can benefit the students

in more than way. When students are exposed to writing, and are provided with

opportunities in the classroom such as in mathematics, it provides teachers with

opportunities to express their knowledge. Word problems for examples help students

conceptualize the concept and go beyond the numbers to understand their

representation in real life situations. When students can write about math topic, they are

permitted to express their thinking and workout through their solutions.

When students use the writing process it helps them think deeply about their ideas and

information learned through reading, listening, viewing and physically experiencing the

world. (Shelley, Brigman, Wood 2006) Writing can provide students with the ability to

express their knowledge and to think in depth about the topic. When writing for subjects

such as social studies and science students can use tangible evidence to write and

express what they learned or did not understand.

Teachers also value the skills learned in languages arts and the ability to use

them in their content areas. Many teachers use double-entry journals to organize their
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ideas about topics being learned. This type of writing can help students structure

understanding of a concept or idea that is being taught outside of writing class.

(Tompkins, 2012) It helps students have tangible evidence of what they understand or

dont understand. A great example of how teachers immerged writing in all subjects by

creating pen pal letters. When students work on making a connection between their

lives and their pen pals by bringing in different content areas. For example, by pulling in

social studies and math into the classroom. Involve math skills by comparing

temperature between geographical location. (Lemkuhl, 2002) This helps students begin

to relate not only their lives to one another, but by pulling in different content areas, it

helps students understand content can be found anywhere.

Cross-curriculum writing provides students with opportunities to practice their

writing along with helping think through their thoughts and ideas. Research has shown

that while it benefits students to integrate writing into other lessons, a balance needs to

be found. While you want to emphasize the importance of literacy and writing in all

content area you do not want to lose the core of your lesson. Its important to include

cross-subject planning to increase understanding for students.