Using Google Docs to Promote Cross-curricular Literacy Development in Secondary Mathematics

CoursesKatherine Landau Wright – Texas A&M University

Jillian Van Zandt – Texas A&M University

Original Problems• Writing instruction needs to be

cross-curricular, but most content-area teachers feel pressed to cover their materials• Individual students have unique

needs for writing instruction

Traditional Approach

• Students exposed to genre samples• Assignment given (possibly including rubric

and/or outline)• Students complete task and turn in

assignment• Product is graded

Alternative Approaches

Writing is a skill that can and must be explicitly taught to students

• Gradual Release of Responsibility (“I do”, “we do”, “you do”) – Provides scaffolding for

students so they know what is expected of them and how to achieve those expectations

(Weaver, 2002)• Consume, Critique, Produce (Lattimer, 2003)

Cross-Curricular Writing• Allowing students to write both formally and

informally about what they experience in the classroom helps them better comprehend lessons and naturally leads to a more inquiry-based approach to education (Fordham, Wellman, & Sandmann, 2002)

• Writing in content-area classes supports higher-order thinking

• Students must be prepared to write for real-world situations after high school.

Group Work in Middle Grades

Benefits• Can improve writing skills of

both native speakers and English Language Learners (Long & Porter, 1985; Boughey, 1997)

• Allows for multiple perspectives

• Students can provide scaffolding to each other

Drawbacks• Lack of accountability• Variety of motivational

factors• Frequently individual

students take on a disproportionate amount of work

From January 2012-May 2012, two projects using Cloud Technology were assigned

• January 2012 – 7th and 8th grade students worked in groups to complete an expository writing assignment for English/Language Arts class. 7th grade students used Primarypad (www.Primarypad.com) to comply with COPPA regulations.

• April/May 2012 – 8th grade students worked in groups to create a storybook explaining a mathematical concept. This assignment was graded by both their English/Language Arts and Mathematics teachers.

Students’ Introduction

Participation Credit Examples• 1 Credit– logging on and doing something

– Making a comment of one sentence or less– Minor additions/changes that reflect less than five minutes of work

• 2 Credits– Making contributions to the essay of at least a paragraph– Making longer, more meaningful comments/suggestions and explaining

thinking– Other changes that reflect at least fifteen minutes worth of work

• 3 Credits– Making multi-paragraph contributions to the essay– Making changes to the overall organization of the essay and explaining

why changes were made– Making suggestions to classmates that could help improve their writing

skills– Other changes/comments that reflect at least thirty minutes worth of

work

Grading• 70 points - Final product using a traditional

assignment rubric - All group members will received the same score

• 20 points - Individual Contributions – Each time students logged on, they could earn up to three participation credits. They individually earned a score out of 15 credits.

• 10 points - Individual as Part of the Whole – (Number of student’s individual credits) / (total credits earned by group/number of group members)

Sample GradesProject Grade – 84% (58.8 points)• Part 1: Individual

contributions (20 points)– Total credits earned: 13 – Grade (15 credits to earn 20

points): 17.4 points

• Part 2: Individual as part of whole (10 points)– Total credits earned by group:

25– Individual proportion: 6.25– Grade: 20.8 points

• FINAL GRADE: 97 Points

Project Grade - 86% (60.2 points)

• Part 1: Individual contributions (20 points)– Total credits earned: 1 – Grade (15 credits to earn 20

points): 1.4 Points

• Part 2: Individual as part of whole (10 points)– Total credits earned by group:

35– Individual proportion: 7– Grade: 1.4 points

• FINAL GRADE: 63 Points

Benefits of Student Interaction

• Metacognition:– “I don't think we want to make it personal lets

have it more based on the facts that way its more convin[c]ing”

• Self-monitoring:– Issac: “dude you copied everything you wrote from

the internet…”– Andrew: “no i did not”– Issac: “i just found all of it online exactly the same”

Teacher Scaffolding

• “im going to highlight a section that i was editing and i would like to know if it makes since [sic].”

• Staying on-topic• Participation– Seventh and eighth grade students had only turned

in 55% of English/Language Arts projects on time in the first half of the school year. However, there was 85% participation in first Google Docs project.

Student Feedback• Generally positive• One student wrote that Google Docs is “a great tool

because as you work the teacher can give you advice to improve.”

• Another stated that she liked the project because she could “communicate while working on the group project and [her] friends could help [her] be a better writer.”

• “We chatted if we needed help and we deleted some things that we thought were dumb. And then we made them better and we said why we changed it and turned it into something better.”

“Do the Three Little Pigs Know About Pythagorean Theorem?”

“Missing Crayons”Color Missing Accounted ForRed 20(R) 20Green 14(G) 16Blue 7(B) 8Yellow 9(Y) 6

(R+20)+(B+8)+(G+16)+(Y+6)=100

“Lottery Ticket”

Limitations and Areas for Future Research

• Too small of a sample to make generalizations, but strong evidence that existing pedagogy can be applied to the use of classroom technology.

• Opportunity to close technology literacy gap – Google Docs (now Google Drive) is free, so even schools with limited technology could implement. Further research needed

References

Fordham, N.W., Wellman, D., & Sandman, A. (2002). Taming the text: Engaging and supporting students in social studies readings. The Social Studies, 93(4), 149–158.

Boughey, C. (1997). Learning to write by writing to learn: a group-work approach. ELT Journal, 51(2), 126-134.

Lattimer, H. (2003). Thinking through genre: Units of study in reading and writing workshops grades 4-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Long, M.H. & Porter, P.A. (1985) Group work, interlanguage talk, and second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19(2), 207-228.

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading process and practice (3rd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Additional ResourcesAtwell, N. (1998). In the middle: New understandings about writing, reading, and learning.

Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc. Davies, C. & Birbili, M. (2000). What do people need to know about writing in order to write in

their jobs? British Journal of Educational Studies, 48(4), 429-445.Federal Trade Commission. (1998). Children's online privacy protection act of 1998. Retrieved

January 14, 2012, from http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm.Gribbin, W. (1991). Writing across the curriculum: Assignments and evaluation. The Clearing

House, 64(6), 365-370.McLeod, S. (2000). Writing across the curriculum: An introduction. In S. McLeod & M. Soven

(Eds.), Writing across the curriculum: A guide to developing programs (pp. 1-8). WAC Clearinghouse Landmark Publications in Writing Studies. Retrieved February 18, 2012, from http://wac.colostate.edu/books/mcleod_soven/chapter1.pdf.

O’Reilly, T. & McNaMara, D.S. The impact of science knowledge, reading skill, and reading strategy knowledge on more traditional “high-stakes” measures of high school students’ science achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 44(1), 161-196.

Visone, J.D. (2010). Science or reading: What is being measured by standardized tests? American Secondary Education, 39(1), 95-112.

Wood Ray, K. (2006). Study driven: A framework for planning units of study in the writing workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.