Discussion: Teacher Leadership: Objects and Strategies

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posted by: Laura Harnish on May 13, 2003 at 10:02PM
subject: expository writing in science
Recently, I have been having discussions with some teachers at my
school about how to integrate expository writing with other subjects.
We discussed that a lesson in science might have a main objective of
how to write a paragraph or essay in this content area of science. The
science objectives might be sub-objectives that serve as a vehicle to
provide students an expository topic on which to write. If the main
objective is how to write, then we felt that the teacher would need to
do a lot of modeling of writing exposiory paragraphs herself. The
teacher would need to show students, "This is what a good paragraph
about science could say." Of course, the science objective would not
always be secondary to the science object. However, there are several
different ways that scientists write about their content. Sometimes
they write summaries of procedures. Sometimes they write an analysis
of data with conclusions. These different forms of expository writing
each require focused instruction on the writing where the science could
serve as the catalyst for having a purpose for writing.
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