English to Spanish Social Sciences Education / Pedagogy Writing Across the Curriculum

"Johnson, Jones, Thornton, Langrall, and Rous (1998) also studied fifth graders writing in the mathematics classroom. The students did journal writing before and after each probability task where they described
their THINKING AND REASONING about probability. At the completion of the program five of the eight target students made gains in both probability and writing. Although the team was not surprised to find
that students used both writing and mathematical symbols as they wrote about probability (see Bruner, 1964; Biggs & Collis, 1991), they had not expected the solutions of these fifth graders to rely so heavily
on these two types of representation."