One of the biggest changes in modern academic standards is the shift in responsibility for general literacy. Instead of only the “writing teachers” teaching reading and writing, it is now expected that all teachers across all content areas do so (something we have discussed before).

In the past, literacy—that is, the ability to read, write, and comprehend—has been the domain of English Language Arts teachers (and elsewhere in the world, Literature and Composition teachers).

Limiting the skill of writing to a single content area has altered the way students think in ways that are only now being revealed, as math teachers are being asked to teach writing. Now students are accustomed to expressing rudimentary understandings in fragments of truncated sentences on exit tickets, taking notes that collect other people's ideas, and avoiding the responsibility to craft persuasive arguments that synthesize multiple perspectives on a daily basis.

So we, the English Language Arts teachers, respond by handing them graphic organizers with blank spaces that prompt them to give “reason 1,” “reason 2,” and “reason 3” in clear sentences that avoid complexity or intellectual effort, as long as their “writing” fits an expected form.

And we provide those same graphic organizers when teachers from other content areas request resources.

Now, generations later, the idea of writing about mathematics or science seems not only challenging but forced and awkward. Science and mathematics, when properly taught, resemble philosophies and ways of making sense of the world more than “content areas,” offering an infinite number of prompts to encourage students to write.

We are in the 21st century and 21st-century thinking is different.

Although it is full of connectivity, collaboration, and astonishing possibilities, the 21st-century learning era is characterized by a fascination with the image, visual spectacle, intermittent alerts, endlessly accessible frivolities, and cognitively limiting patterns of communication.

And in appropriate response, writing might be the answer we have been looking for, right under our noses all this time.