Running head: RATIONALE

Interdisciplinary Curriculum Rationale Jordan Lemmon Regent University

RATIONALE 2 Interdisciplinary Curriculum Rationale The Importance of Interdisciplinary Teaching Teachers have a very limited time in their day and follow a strict pacing guide. Therefore, teachers need to manage their time wisely. I try to include other disciplines whenever possible in each instructional block. It requires creativity invested in every lesson, but it puts the students ahead in the long run. Interdisciplinary teaching helps teachers work smarter instead of scrambling to include enough instructional time. Integrating Science and Writing I designed this lesson to correlate to multiple subjects and standards. In science, the class needed to be introduced to and explore the phases of matter. I wanted to serve as a facilitator for students to experiment with water and discover the phases of matter for themselves. This corresponds to Science SOL 5.4b. The student artifact included is his final draft of the language arts application. I designed this activity to correlate to our current focus in Writing. We were learning about varying sentence structure using appropriate transition words to make our paragraphs flow together (English SOL 5.7g). The application required students to practice using effective transition words while pretending they were a water drop proceeding through the different phases of matter. This student did a wonderful job of interjecting transitional phrases such as then, after that, and finally. Benefits for Teacher and Student Not only did students enjoy having the opportunity to become active and creative with their learning, but their writing also was an assessment for me of their understanding.

RATIONALE 3 Unfortunately, writing instruction is often sacrificed if teachers are pressed for time. Interdisciplinary teaching is one way that writing does not have to suffer.