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Current events and everyday life are often a great place to look. Current situations and debates can be analyzed in the context of the classroom. How meaningful and accurate are a particular set of statistics? What are the potential economic impacts of a proposed piece of legislation? What is the history behind an ongoing issue? Is "good science" being employed in an argument, or is it simply a fear-tactic for the ignorant? How many different ways did the student use math outside of school on Wednesday? What aspects of the food-chain can be observed in the local park? Most of what we teach and learn does have real-world application, but if the link is not made obvious through exercises such as these, the lessons remain abstract, and are soon forgotten.

Grading a written assignment is often a daunting task. Before the assignment begins, be sure to create a rubric, and to make the students clearly aware of the expectations upon which they will be graded. As a suggestion only, save a few points (15%, perhaps) for discretionary use, that you may reward creative efforts and highly developed presentations, without unfairly taking points away from those students who only meet the minimum requirements. Do make sure that the students understand that effort will be a part of the final grade, lest they claim that it is "unfair" when you reveal this to them after the fact. (If you do not allow yourself discretionary points, beware that the writers of exceptional papers may also cry "unfair" when they get the same grade as the writer of a mediocre paper who simply met the criteria laid out in the rubric.)

Having dealt with the basic rationale and approach to writing across the curriculum, all that remains is to provide a few examples of how different writing exercises can be used.

Journals are a popular tool. By definition, they are personal and fairly free-form. Make no mistake though, to be effective, a teacher still has to monitor the assignment. Journal topics should be assigned, relevant to some aspect of the lessons. One highly useful topic area is reactions to a passage read - be they questions, commentaries, disagreements, links to other concepts. The value lies in encouraging the students to think about what they've read, thereby making it more meaningful to them and promoting retention and future discussion. When reviewing the journals, this also offers the teacher an opportunity to provide feedback without the student having had

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