Writing for Science Translates Into Good Writing Period

Deb Schochet, a third-grade teacher at Olympic View Elementary School in North Seattle patiently binged the xylophone one more time.

Can the students hear the difference between the tones made by the longer bars, versus the shorter? If so, explain it in their science notebooks. Talk with your neighbor about it. So the 20 or so kids in her class yesterday did just that. The childish gumbo of words floated over the room with expressions like "Because of this..." "If that happens, then this must be..."

Schochet was demonstrating a science writing project that is teaching students how to write in science class and explain their answers. According to Schochet and Betsy Rupp Fulwiler, a school coach, asking students to write and explain their hypothesis is resulting in higher writing scores across the board in this and other schools using the approach. The project, funded by an NSF grant and started about seven years ago, is one of the few of its kind in the nation, linking science and writing into a complete unit.

Yesterday, five teachers from the Yakima School District were observing the class, in the hopes of beefing up their program east of the mountains.

Rupp Fulwiler told me that studies from UCLA have shown an overall improvement in writing when this method is used. I'll try post a link to that report later today.