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The Writing Journey<\/em><\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0that is.\u00a0 One of the critical practices that CMSi recommends in our Cognitively Complex Instruction <\/a>workshop is to include writing in classroom activities, no matter what the content area is.\u00a0 Writing builds cognitive skills, increases rigor, and enhances student engagement wherever it is employed.\u00a0\u00a0 You teach Art? Have them write about their creations \u2013 what did they want it to express? How did they want people to feel when they saw it?\u00a0 Or perhaps you teach Math:\u00a0 How did they decide on that equation to solve that problem? Explain the process used.\u00a0 How about Science?\u00a0 Write up your proposed experiment and explain its results; analyze your findings to make a conclusion.\u00a0 Physical Education? Track your activity levels and write about which activities you thought were most beneficial and why. \u00a0Kelly Gallagher\u2019s article in Educational Leadership<\/em> discusses writing as critical practice, and the many benefits for students who engage in writing across the curriculum.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a brilliant science activity we use to illustrate this concept in our Cognitively Complex Instruction<\/em> training:<\/p>\n The principal of the middle school wants to know if parent complaints about people speeding in the school zone are valid.\u00a0 Middle school students had to design an experiment to measure the speed of vehicles in the school zone on their campus using distance and time to calculate speed since there was no radar gun available to them. They collected this data in front of their school using actual motorists driving in the school zone.\u00a0 In addition to writing up their hypothesis, and the procedures they followed, and creating a data chart, they were required to write a business letter to the principal summarizing the results and conclusions of their experiment which either validated or invalidated the parent complaints.<\/p>\n Note how the writing is integral to the assignment, and has a real-world context:\u00a0 they measured actual motorists in front of their school (super engaging and hands-on), and just like adults conducting surveys or collecting data, they reported out their findings to someone.\u00a0 The writing adds a whole additional layer of cognitive complexity at the highest level (Creating) and increases engagement (How can I best communicate my results to my client?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Writing Journey,\u00a0that is.\u00a0 One of the critical practices that CMSi recommends in our Cognitively Complex Instruction workshop is to include writing in classroom activities, no matter what the content area is.\u00a0 Writing builds cognitive skills, increases rigor, and enhances student engagement wherever it is employed.\u00a0\u00a0 You teach Art? Have them write about their creations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109,"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/1109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}