Writing Across The Curriculum: Theme Study

Writing doesn’t have to be boring and confined to that English Language Arts (ELA) classroom with the eccentric ELA teacher who dyes her hair unnatural colors. The teaching approach of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) as advocated by Lucy Calkins can make a difference in the education of elementary school students. While WAC is an effective tool across the board at all grade levels, this paper will focus on the first-grade. WAC is simply expanding the use of teaching and utilizing literacy throughout all of the fields of study in the public school system. WAC will, in turn, create a link for the students between the different content areas, because they all utilize literacy. Taking advantage of literacy in other content areas will increase

Mathematics can be frustrating and boring for many students in the first grade. Too often mathematics instruction is composed of memorizing numbers and procedures, while “the language for understanding math is often neglected” (LIGHTSEY). Linking mathematics back other to other content areas and giving it real life applicability can help make math “click” for the students. Utilizing a theme study in the mathematics classroom can be especially beneficial to first-grade students, giving them more of the real life applicable context for the skills that they are learning. Covering money and its use in a theme study is an excellent way to teach mathematics, while also improving the students’ literacy, which in the first grade is still in its infancy. Students will also learn basic life skills such as personal finance during this theme study. The theme study should cover money in a way that incorporates mathematics extensively, and have literacy at its heart, in order to be as effective as it can be. Classroom teachers implementing a theme study on money and its use should start by reading books about the subject to introduce it. The students should also be allowed to

Without the implementation of WAC, student literacy may suffer to the extent that it is harmful to their progress throughout their K-12 education and beyond. WAC is invaluable to teaching literacy and is an effective means instilling a love for literacy into the students. Across the board, there are nearly endless practical applications in all content areas to effectively use WAC as a tool for student success. Not utilizing WAC could be considered detrimental to the students, because so much of modern life revolves around literacy. It would only take someone to imagine being a citizen of a culture where so much is dependent upon literacy, where any person who does not have a competent level of literacy would be left behind in a world that puts so much value on it. Teachers must teach literacy, and the author strongly recommends implementing it across the curriculum, as WAC emphasis at its core. Thus, WAC is an effective to teach first-grade students. Instilling a positive view of literacy is important at this age because the first-grade teacher is setting the student up for success in the following grades. Regardless of the teacher content area that they teach, WAC is an effective practice that every teacher should seriously consider implementing in their