...but this freedom cannot be solidified if one is unable to write. In middle school and high school, I was given many opportunities to complete writing activities that proved to be extremely useful in the classroom setting. Not only did most of these assignments help me improve my skills in writing, as well as in reading, they helped me enjoy the subject and lessons even more as the semester passed by. For instance, I was required to put together a science journal for my 8th grade science class. In this journal, I wrote down questions, observations, and conclusions after completing science labs with the rest of the class. In the journal, I was allowed to draw pictures and make relationships between what I was learning and what I encountered outside the classroom. Making such connections allowed me to figure out how science truly existed in the outside world, not just within the class itself. Also, my skills in writing greatly improved as my instructor would collect the journals on a weekly basis and positively correct our ways of writing if wrong. The simple criticisms didn't make me feel bad about myself. Instead, I was able to see what needed to be worked on (grammatically), and transform my ways for the better. As a result of these journals, I became a more confident writing and learned to love the subject of science which is why, today, I want to teach it to my own students in the future.
When teaching, I want to use a similar strategy/activity when helping my students improve their writing skills. I want to be able to offer improvement skills that can better influence them to write in a more professional manner. Also, I want them to love the subject of science by incorporating their own thoughts and ideas into the journals and other types of activities, such as group inquiries or games designed by teams of students at the end of the unit. Such strategies of teaching, I hope, will push the students to see what they need to improve in regards to writing and make corrections for future cases in my class or later semesters.
The following is a link to a video that contains different activities for writing in middle school classrooms.
Writing Activities in Middle School
You have great ideas about how to integrate reading and writing into the classroom. Journal or daybooks are a good place to start by asking student to write down things related to science in many different genres.
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