I have been telling myself for two years now that I need to incorporate more writing into my classroom but have never fully committed to this. I have given my students writing projects that include them writing about how math is used in careers that they are interested in and asking them to describe mathematical processes like solving for the volume of a cylinder. I will make an extra effort to have my students journal this year. They have already had two journal assignments since my return. I feel like writing helps my students connect with the concepts that I am teaching.
My class writes daily, I provide a prompt... I was doing the 3,2,1 - but with 6th graders you get the agenda of the day if you do that. They tell you we learned "Greatest Common Factor, Did a Multiplication Drill and a game". So now I tell them to to write about a concept we are learning --- give me examples and draw pictures if they can. For example: Todays prompt was "Tell me about LCM and LCD - what do they have in common (how are they the same) when do we use them in fractions and why... Some days I get really good responses and some I don't. Sometimes I repeat the prompt or explain further what I really wanted them to focus on by asking the question a little differently. One of my favorites though was the prompt right before the six weeks test, I asked them to tell me about an area that they feel they really confused about and wanted to go over again before the test..... One of my students told me she felt confused when she was in the Dallas area, she gets lost easy. Then when I explained no-- that I meant an "area" in math, she said we had not covered "length times width yet" so I am learning to re-word and better express myself in what I want them to answer.
I have tried to have my students journal, but it hasn't gone to well. Most of my students have language disabilities and it is very difficult for them to write. Often they just sit and think and I get no response at all in their journals or I can't understand what they wrote. I am not giving up. We are currently using our journals to keep up with measuring a growing plant in class. I AM NOT going to give up.
One journal entry I used was to explain the difference between half and the square root of a number. I also accepted examples, anything they could use to demonstrate their thoughts. Many of them really didn't know how to find 1/2, and so it led to a great understanding of where they were.
I'm not doing as good of a job of writing with my children as I'd like to. I've used journals successfully in the past, but with this new curriculum it's really hard to get everything in the curriculum covered and have time to write during the 50 minutes we have. I've started adding a bonus on our mini assessments. It's basically a quick journal entry, but I can add on points to their quiz and get the benefit of them explaining their thoughts in words.
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We take notes. We keep a journal. Some of my bellwork requires that they write a paragraph about something we have studied.
I have been telling myself for two years now that I need to incorporate more writing into my classroom but have never fully committed to this. I have given my students writing projects that include them writing about how math is used in careers that they are interested in and asking them to describe mathematical processes like solving for the volume of a cylinder. I will make an extra effort to have my students journal this year. They have already had two journal assignments since my return. I feel like writing helps my students connect with the concepts that I am teaching.
My class writes daily, I provide a prompt... I was doing the 3,2,1 - but with 6th graders you get the agenda of the day if you do that. They tell you we learned "Greatest Common Factor, Did a Multiplication Drill and a game". So now I tell them to to write about a concept we are learning --- give me examples and draw pictures if they can. For example: Todays prompt was "Tell me about LCM and LCD - what do they have in common (how are they the same) when do we use them in fractions and why...
Some days I get really good responses and some I don't. Sometimes I repeat the prompt or explain further what I really wanted them to focus on by asking the question a little differently. One of my favorites though was the prompt right before the six weeks test, I asked them to tell me about an area that they feel they really confused about and wanted to go over again before the test..... One of my students told me she felt confused when she was in the Dallas area, she gets lost easy. Then when I explained no-- that I meant an "area" in math, she said we had not covered "length times width yet" so I am learning to re-word and better express myself in what I want them to answer.
I have tried to have my students journal, but it hasn't gone to well. Most of my students have language disabilities and it is very difficult for them to write. Often they just sit and think and I get no response at all in their journals or I can't understand what they wrote. I am not giving up. We are currently using our journals to keep up with measuring a growing plant in class. I AM NOT going to give up.
One journal entry I used was to explain the difference between half and the square root of a number. I also accepted examples, anything they could use to demonstrate their thoughts. Many of them really didn't know how to find 1/2, and so it led to a great understanding of where they were.
I'm not doing as good of a job of writing with my children as I'd like to. I've used journals successfully in the past, but with this new curriculum it's really hard to get everything in the curriculum covered and have time to write during the 50 minutes we have. I've started adding a bonus on our mini assessments. It's basically a quick journal entry, but I can add on points to their quiz and get the benefit of them explaining their thoughts in words.
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