Return to the first page of this article

Effective tools make it much easier for students to reap the full rewards of writing across the curriculum. Our students keep their personal dictionaries open on their desks throughout the school day, so they can keep capturing new vocabulary and then use it correctly when they write. We also use our reading response journals to stimulate and preserve written responses to content-area fiction and nonfiction. And we find that our writing journals are a good place for illustrations, graphic organizers, and writing about science and social studies.

For math, however, we realized that a somewhat different format was needed to help intermediate students solve problems and link written language to numbers, graphs or other illustrations. To support the students’ thinking process, we started with writing lines at the top of the page, so students first write a problem and thereby focus on its wording. Then they have a large area underneath for calculations or other “visual thinking,” and below that are additional writing lines where students explain their solution in words.

Our new math journal also provides a list of math words in the back, along with blank lines for additional words selected by the student or teacher. This becomes a quick, easy and personalized spelling/vocabulary reference right inside each journal. There are also “guiding questions” in the front of the book to prompt clear thinking and good habits.

This supportive format makes math work easier for students, and it also helps teachers understand and instruct individual students more effectively. In our experience, many students who struggle with math have problems with its language and concepts. Explaining their own solutions forces students to think and to communicate their thought process, which helps the students improve their understanding and writing ability, while also revealing where further instruction or support is needed.

For example, a student who has memorized the multiplication tables may prove unable to adapt this knowledge when trying to solve a word problem. His or her explanation of the problem-solving process may reveal that the student has not yet grasped the concept underlying multiplication—that the numbers represent groups of objects. In this situation, we would then have the student work with groups or arrays of math manipulatives, in order to make the underlying principles visible and tangible.

At the other end of the spectrum, some students instinctively know how to do math and solve problems, but they have difficulty explaining what they know and how they know it. Explaining their solutions in writing encourages these students to slow down and think about their process, bringing it to consciousness so they can fully understand and apply it.

For all types of students, continued work with hands-on materials is an important adjunct to writing in a math journal. And our students love to play a game called “Prove It,” in which they challenge classmates to use manipulatives in order to prove that a written solution actually works.

In this and other ways, follow-up discussions, questioning, modeling, and sharing are also important adjuncts to the use of math journals. Reading or hearing another student’s solution can lead to a better understanding of a particular aspect of math—or a new approach to problem solving. This sort of cooperative learning can also help students improve their language and literacy skills.

In addition, thinking skills improve as working in a math journal forces students to slow down, consider a problem, develop their own solution, and then find the right words to communicate their thought process. This is a huge accomplishment for children, and it deserves to be shared, acknowledged, preserved, and re-experienced. Being able to say “I figured it out for myself, and I can prove my answer is right,” becomes a very powerful and motivating part of the learning process.

This is the sort of experience that writing across the curriculum prompts and documents, in math as well as all the subject areas.

About the Authors
Alana Trisler has taught kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, and has served as a speech therapist and as a learning specialist.
These experiences, along with those of her colleague, Patrice Cardiel, have been the basis for the creation of the phenomenonally
successful “Words I Use” family of books. Alana lives and teaches in the Tulsa, OK area.

Patrice Cardiel has taught kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade. These educational experiences, along with those of her colleague, Alana Trisler, have been the basis for the creation of the phenomenonally sucessful “Words I Use” family of books. Patrice lives and teaches in the Tulsa, OK area.

Download article [2 pages, 64kb Adobe PDF]