Writing Across the Curriculum

While I can appreciate Aristotle's topois (description, narration, argument, comparison), these forms of writing are taught over and over again from 3rd or 4th grade through introductory composition in college.  They are important forms to know but there are other ways of teaching writing.  There are some great programs available, such as The National Writing Project, to help teachers prepare lessons and walk students through writing.  I also think that more emphasis should be paid to writing in different curriculums.

Collaboration
As an English teacher though, I am not knowledgeable enough about writing in all of the disciplines, and this is where collaboration can really help.  I know English and History often pair together, as does Science and Math, but there are some good reasons to pair English with Science and Math and History with Science and Math as well.  In an ideal world, this might happen.  In our current educational climate, it only happens occasionally.  When it works well, everyone is rewarded, but it can fail just as big.  I find this happens when people are forced to collaborate rather than coming to it on their own.  The logistics setting up these types of learning situations is also very tricky with different schedules and often no time to collaborate given during school.

Ideas
Comparative study is a good way for students to pick up the differences in writing among different disciplines.  It is a way to show students that writing is not confined to five paragraph essays. As an English teacher, I would ask teachers from other disciplines come in and talk about how writing for their discipline and writing for English are different.  Through this, many similarities in writing will also came out.  This was my way of inviting students into the conversation.  I think explicitly pointing out the differences is a good way to begin rather than assuming that students understand the differences.