When teaching across curriculums, what components should be included in the scope of things?

[Stephen B. Duncan]

Hello,

I am Stephen Duncan and I currently teach high school PE at Coral Academy of Science.   As such, it is always a short matter of time until I hear students whining and complaining, "Why do we have to write essays in PE".  I justify assigning essays by saying, "You need to learn how to do this for college."

As part of the homework I require from my students, I regularly require them to write an essay that is usually an inquiry, such as,"What does sportsmanship mean to you", or, "Find a sport, if any, that does not require you to move." Sadly, only a minority of the students actually do the essay.  Even more depressing to me, only a handful actually follow the very detailed rubric given, or do so with any degree of proficiency in grammar, sentence structure, and spelling.  Some of these students I have had for up to four years and still have not demonstrated any significant improvement.  This baffles me. Left with no other idea as what to do about it, I chalk it up as "lazy, unmotivated, uncaring, students."  Unfortunately for me, I do not know how to focus on these basic principles without taking time away from my PE content.  I of course, am looking to this class to provide me answers to this dilemma.

Here is a new twist that has recently surfaced for me.  As I read "Breakthroughs", and do research on the topic, I am becoming aware that the scope of this class far exceeds anything I had ever thought to require from my students in their writings.  This is leaving me with a nagging question, "When teaching across curriculums, what components should be included in the scope of things?"  Specifically, am I silly for expecting proper grammar and spelling when it would be much more exciting to write anecdotal, episodically,  or poetically, and so on.  Strangely enough, I feel it would be much easier to teach these exciting and creative ideas to my students than to expect them to use proper grammar.  I honestly think I could take all of these wonderful ideas and fly, IF, writing  was my curriculum and I had the time to do so. As it is, I already know I could implement some of these ideas to a point and I am looking forward to trying them out.  I am, however, still left with the question of how do I deal with the conventions and grammar issue, or, should I even be worried about it in the first place?  It would seem that there is so much more to enjoy about writing, that expecting my students to spell correctly in coherent sentences would be secondary at best.  But, as I fall back on my original justification for assigning essays in the first place, I know that my students will be graded harshly on these components when they write their many college level papers for their professors.  Hence, the dilemma. 

For my presentation I will be researching for answers to this inquiry. I have some ideas already on how to implement and present these new concepts that I have been exposed to so far, but I am still drawing a blank on my primary question.  Dare I say, it should be most interesting.

[carol bergin]

Stephen;
As a veteran teacher, I've found more "creative/comfortable" essays/stories/paragraphs are written when you tell the students "not to worry about spelling or punctuation with the first draft. Also, if you utilize peer editing, the kids seem to care a little more if they know peers will be reading their compositions. They don't want to hear; "I can't read your writing", or "what is this word supposed to be?". Maybe this won't help with your inquiry, but I've used it with different classrooms.

[Kelly Hiatt]

Stephen,

These are all great questions. In fact, I find myself asking the same questions all of the time and I am teaching fifth graders. I expect the same things out of them that you expect out of your high school students. Isn't it interesting that we are wondering the same things at even a younger age and yet the students are still struggling with conventions in high school. I like to make writing creative and like you said fly with it. However, I agree with you about expecting our students to be able to write with correct grammar and conventions. If we only allow our students to write creatively and don't require them to implement conventions, how are they going to pass writing tests and prepare college essays. At our school this year our fifth grade students lowest score on the writing test across the board were conventions. This is a little frustrating considering we spend a substantial amount of time working on revising and editing skills. I did find however that the students conventions were not as bad as their fluency. This starts making me think about how I can help them with sentence fluency and conventions. It sometimes feels like we are back to square one. I am very excited to hear what you can up with .

[Kristina E. Wulfing]

Hi Stephen,
We get familiar questions, “Why do we have to write in (fill in the blank here)?” which is exciting to hear. I like how you have your students writing within PE, what a huge accomplishment already. I think this summer institute will help with ideas and you may have to think outside the box a little. In my opinion, yes at time our students are lazy, however, when it comes to writing I have found they need a lot of guidance and time, which I know can be hard when we are trying to teach our subject matter. Hopefully, you will get some new ideas to take back to your class after this summer. We will definitely have to talk more specifically one on one about this writing component and expectations in your own class. I can’t wait to see what you come up with for your presentation.

[Ron Bonomo]

Duncan,
I feel your pain! As I read through everyones' ideas I see the ice cracking in front of me. I skate towards and finally past the sign that says,"THIN ICE WRITE HERE!" I know I have some ideas about how to approach writing but am I being "Silly," as you put it? Hard to say. What I do know from just my brief introduction to this project and what you are saying is that maybe units should be collaborated upon with the English/Language Arts Department.

[Kimberly Cuevas]

Stephen,
I, also, commend you on writing in PE. I think you have hit on a very important question, which is, "When do we draw the line and make students accountable for their work?" I have served recently on too many articulation committees with our colleges and universities to say that we should just let kids write. The main complaint that college/university people have about our kids is that they don't edit and turn in polished work. You are right, in that it is absolutely expected that college freshmen know their punctuation and grammar. But when or how to we make them accountable and still allow for learning? I don't know the answer, but I do know, at some point, we need to.

Kim