“This ain’t English Class”

     Though I was planning on sleeping late everyday and being lazy over spring break, I decided that my wallet would be happy with me if I worked during the past week. I let my old boss know that I would be available to substitute teach, and she told me that I would spend the next five days teaching a ninth grade physical science class. Though I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the grade level or subject, I decided to make the most of it and see if I would think about things differently after having had half a semester of education courses under my belt. By the end of the first period, something struck me that has been discussed in many of my classes: Writing across the curriculum. 

    My instructions for this class were to review material on Monday for an exam on Tuesday. The rest of the week I was able to introduce new material any way I wished. I took a look at the exam and decided that since the review was only going to take about 30 minutes, I would have the students take the rest of the period to do the critical thinking essays on the exam in pairs in order to get deeper into the material (they were not supposed to do these questions on the actual exam). Upon hearing that they needed to write out their answers, I heard one student say, “This ain’t English class.” After getting over the initial bad taste that enters my mouth when I hear young students use the word ‘ain’t’, I realized that some students really do see writing as something that should stay in the English classrooms. It also became apparent that by ninth grade, these students had not been introduced to much writing in a science classroom. After hearing their moans and groans, and telling them that doing the questions would help them on the exam, I had time to think about the implications of this. 

    Though the readings I have encountered in much of my current course work emphasize how important it is to develop student writing across all sections of the curriculum, it still does not happen in some schools. The use of writing forces students to understand ideas and put arguments together in their heads and then on paper. This level of thinking is advantageous to understanding material in all class settings, not just in an English classroom. I realize that implementing writing across the curriculum is easier said than done, but it should be happening on some level. With writing and communication being such needed skills in finding a job today, it is important that students not see writing as something limited to a 45 minute block during the school day. As for the student using the word ‘ain’t’…well I’m not (ain’t?) going to discuss that in this post! 

-Eric