Writing Across the Curriculum

January 20, 2026

I hear from many of you that finding time for writing instruction can be challenging, especially since many of the national literacy programs focus almost exclusively on reading with writing relegated to a minor role. However, writing deserves its own place in your daily schedule—probably in multiple spots. Writing is a tool to help students uncover new thoughts and ideas and share what they know. And as research has shown, when writing is taught in balance to reading, students’ writing and reading skills improve.

Students need explicit instruction in how to write informational, narrative, opinion/argument, and poetry pieces and lots of opportunities to put pen or pencil to paper (or fingers on keyboards). The good news is that it’s easier to work in more writing when you realize that writing (like reading) doesn’t belong exclusively in the language arts block. Students should be writing every day, with attention paid to writing in science, social studies, and math, as well as in language arts. Each discipline has its own writing demands and unique genres, so students need plenty of opportunity to practice writing across the curriculum.

Writing in Science

For many students, writing about curricular content gives them extra support. Instead of feeling stuck for what to write about, or not having enough detail to fully elaborate, writing about a shared area of study supports them with the knowledge and vocabulary they need, so their focus (and your instruction) can be on how to write about these topics well.

Writing in science also requires explicit teaching about writing that is unique to this discipline. Students need explicit teaching about how to write scientific observations, which requires using precise language and focusing on details that change over time. They may be writing lab reports that follow a particular structure—purpose, hypothesis, procedure, results, and conclusion—to explain what was tested and what happened. They’ll need to practice procedural writing so that requires clear, ordered steps so another student can repeat their investigation. Writing in science requires that students be taught specific strategies that help them determine what details to include, that precise word choice matters, that evidence, not opinions, back up summations, etc.

A few strategies from The Writing Strategies Book to check out to support this work:

·       5.6 Teaching Texts: How-Tos, p. 173

·       6.10 Prove It, p. 221

·       6.25 Cracking Open Verbs, p. 236

·       7.16 Clever Titles, Headings, and Subheadings, p. 277

Writing in Social Studies

Writing well about historical events requires sifting through lots of dates, names, and events to determine what’s important, why events happened, how perspective alters interpretation, and more. Students will most likely be asked to write about the causes of particular events, to compare and contrast historical topics, or to explain the choices made by people and governments. This requires explicit instruction on writing strategies that help students organize their work chronologically, structure an essay around cultures or time periods, or use facts to support a historical argument.

Additionally, history offers wonderful opportunities for narrative writing, which can be done either during social studies or language arts. Imagine a story about a child traveling west on the Oregon trail. Students will need to tell the story in order, include real events and places, and use historical details to bring their story to life and to have it ring true.

A few strategies from The Writing Strategies Book to check out to support this work:

·       4.13 Their Topic, Your Idea, p. 148

·       6.11 Take Notes from an Illustration or Photo, p. 222

·       6.34 Character Dialogue and Dialect for Historical Accuracy, p. 245

·       6.35 Use Imagery to Make a Fact Come Alive, p. 246

Writing in Mathematics

Yes, students need instruction in types of writing unique to mathematics. Not only will strategy-based instruction make their writing better it will also help them improve their mathematical abilities and thinking. Mathematical writing is purposeful and precise and relies on reasoning. Students need to be taught how to use words, numbers, and symbols together to explain how and why their solution works. They need to be able to defend their approach to a particular problem, citing exactly what they did to determine an answer. They may need to explain how a math model represents a particular situation, great for connecting real-world problems to math equations or diagrams. Writing mathematically requires strategies that help students focus on accuracy, clarity, and reasoning.

A few strategies from The Writing Strategies Book to check out to support this work:

·       6.38 Mentor Sentence, p. 249

·       7.3 Precise Nouns, p. 264

·       10.4 Talk Around the Idea, Then Write, p. 367

Writing in English Language Arts

Students need to practice a variety of genres and modes of writing, and learn to work through a writing process. ELA blocks are a great opportunity to create a several-week unit helping children through the process of generating ideas, choosing one, planning their writing, drafting, revising, and editing. You might ask students to write about reading you’ve done together during the ELA block, or open up opportunities to write about topics of their own choosing. Explicit instruction and strategies will be essential at every step of the process, and for every type of writing.

Making time to teach writing across the curriculum is as important as making time to teach reading across the curriculum. For more information about writing strategies that help students learn the various aspects of good writing, please see The Writing Strategies Book. If you are looking to learn more about how to structure writing lessons, refer to Teaching Writing in Small Groups, which can be applied to whole-class lessons as well.