Integration: Making the Most of Your Time

1. Integration: Making the Most of Your Time Sara Margaret West Spartanburg Writing Project Summer Institute 2010

2. Integration • What is it? • Why should teachers use it? • How can I implement it in my classroom?

3. What is integration? When you integrate you combine things. Taking two or three subjects and teaching them in one context. Finding creative ways to have your students connect with what you are teaching.

4. Let’s Think About It… Do you integrate any subject areas in your classroom?

5. Do you… • read aloud books: historical fiction, non-fiction, books with text-features, etc. • have your students write about a math, science or social studies topic • read about topics not related to what you are studying

6. Then you… • INTEGRATE • It’s not as hard as you think!

7. Why should we integrate? “Marzano (2003) calculates that there is an average of 200 standards and 3,093 benchmarks in fourteen different content areas that teachers are expected to teach in a school year. He further estimates that teachers need approximately 15,465 hours to address the content articulated in the standards adequately. The problem is that, at the most, teachers have only 9,042 hours of actual instructional time in a typical school year.” Revisiting Curriculum Integration: A Fresh Look at an Old Idea

8. Why should we integrate? “With growing disappointment about the writing ability of high school graduates, educators are realizing that writing instruction can no longer be confined to the English classroom. Fortunately, as teachers in various disciplines have added writing to their courses, they have discovered that writing assignments bring great benefits. Not only do they enhance students' general writing ability, but they also increase both the understanding of content while learning the specific vocabulary of the disciplines.” http://712educators.about.com/cs/writingresources/a/writing.htm

9. Why should we integrate? How many times have you read a book that has taught you a concept not dealing with reading? “Many of the best-loved children’s books provide wonderful lead-ins to learning about particular topics.” Allington and Cunningham p.195

10. Why should we integrate? “To become better readers, children have to read something. Why shouldn’t that something be related to some science or social studies topic we want them to learn about!” Allington and Cunningham p. 193

11. Why should we integrate? time make the skills more relevant provide many opportunities to apply a skill Allington and Cunningham p. 193

12. Why should we integrate? To make our lives a lot easier. Don’t you love to hear students make connections outside of the content you are teaching? It’s fun!

13. How can you integrate in your classroom?

14. Planning an integrated lesson • Look at your standards • Think about what you are going to teach and when. • See if you can find a mentor text that will teach one standard. • Pull in other standards to compliment your lesson.

15. Food for thought: “As you read to your students, think about the fact that you have begun-in collaboration with the author of the text-to teach your students how to write.” Katie Wood Ray, Study Driven p. 115

16. Food for thought: “If writing workshop is a place where students are supposed to do the work of writers, and if it’s the work of writers to read, then it makes sense to me that this reading belongs in the writing workshop.” Katie Wood Ray, Study Driven p. 124

17. Resources • Cunningham, Patricia M. and Allington, Richard L. Classrooms That Work: They All Can Read and Write. Harper Collins, 1994. • Kelly, Melissa. “Writing Across the Curriculum: The Importance of Integrating Writing in All Subjects”. http://712educators.about.com/cs/writingresources/a/writing.htm • INTEGRATING PHYSICAL EDUCATION INTO THE CURRICULUM. http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/DLiT/2003/group13/integration.htm • Ray, Katie Wood. Study Driven. Heinemann. 2006 • Revisiting Curriculum Integration: A Fresh Look at an Old Idea. http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/199195/revisiting_curriculum_integration_a_fresh_look_at_an_old_idea/