Yep, "writing across the curriculum" comes from the never-ending English teacher battle to get teachers in every discipline to teach, use, and assess writing. The idea that students only have to write in English may not be as common as it used to be, but it's still a pretty big fight.

(Case in point: One of my students last year was all upset and asked me if her math teacher was "allowed" to make them write an essay about math. I laughed. Then I sought out the math teacher and give him a big hug.)

Ded, ded, I say, from Squeak and Liv and Owen.

That's a good enough excuse to not do the dishes then defrost the fridge, right?

When I was in high school, we had to put together math portfolios twice a year. Put in the math thing from that semester that we were most proud of and write about why, put in the math thing that we were least proud of and write about why, write a few paragraphs about some math concept from that semester, usually some sort of art thing (like drawing a picture that used at least four trig function graphs, and put down what the graphs were -- I made a picture of a little girl jump roping on the beach, with trig graphs for the waves, the jump rope, and some sea shells), and a page or so on some question like "Was mathematics invented or discovered?" or "Is math an art or a science?" (I remember those questions in particular, because the kids who were better at math went for "discovered" and "art," while the kids who weren't as good at math went for "invented" and "science.")

edit: actually, we had similar portfolio things in most of our high school classes. Put together work from the semester, write about how you did on the work, what you're proud of, what you're not proud of, and a few things done specifically for the portfolio.

I would have more to say, but ded from the cute kid pics.

Barb, that's BAH. Also, it is humbug.

I'm at home. Working. Just barely beat traffic. Now I remember why I hate driving to work. (I only do it when I've forgotten my keycard, which also has my bus pass on it.)

I just remembered something from my ninth grade history portfolio. It was something like, "This essay on the question, 'Were the Dark Ages really dark?' is the assignment that I am least proud of. I got an A- and you read it to the class as an example of a good essay, but I actually wrote it during study hall the period before it was due. I should have put more work into it and not left it until the last minute."

I should have put more work into it and not left it until the last minute.

That describes almost everything I did in high school and college.

In middle school we started having research papers that were a joint project between our Social Studies and English classes. They were a big fat deal.

When our little town's students got to our Regional High School we really were ahead of the game. In college even -- I knew some people who hadn't written a large paper until Senior year in High School while I'd been doing it since the seventh grade. (IIRC, it wasn't just the high-level kids either, we all wrote them.)

The last few months of eighth grade, we had to write a five-paragraph essay practically every day, to prepare us for the Early Warning Test (a test that the state of NJ gave to all eighth-graders to test for people who might need extra help in order to be able to graduate high school in another four years.) That structure and method was drilled into us -- first take a few minutes write down anything you can think of that's relevant to answering the question, then take another few minutes to organized that into an outline, and then start writing. Used that same method and format for every essay on a test up through the AP exams. (We also learned other formats for longer papers, but the five-paragraph one was definitely the one we used the most.)

Tamara, I'm very sorry for your loss. Peace and strength to you and your family.