Writing in Stage 6 mathematics

These teaching strategies support improved student writing in the context of the Mathematics key learning area.

Introduction

Welcome to Stage 6 Literacy in context – writing. If you have come directly to this page, watch the introductory video.

These Stage 6 resources have been created to enable teachers to use the content they are working with in class, to improve their students' writing. The activities sequentially build students’ writing skills and are aligned with Stage 6 syllabus outcomes (PDF 80 KB).

Mathematics Standard has been used to provide examples of the completed activities. Mathematics teachers should model from these examples and create examples for their subject and their students to work with.

Teachers can use Know your students (DOCX 77 KB) to understand their students’ strengths and areas for growth in writing. Populate this document individually, or as a faculty, Year or Stage group.

The activities in these resources support Units of work in Mathematics which often have ‘Language Consideration’ sections where the importance of explicitly explaining vocabulary is highlighted.

Further information on Literacy in Mathematics can be found in General Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics (PDF 437 KB).

Ideas for further professional learning in literacy and numeracy can be found at Literacy and numeracy professional learning.


Opportunities to write

The following video describes ways to include regular writing opportunities for your students.

Opportunities to write

Narrator:

Writing is an essential skill for success in school and life. Students benefit from having many opportunities to write.

According to Hochman and Wexler in 2017 “No matter what path students choose in life, the ability to communicate their thoughts in writing in a way that others can easily understand is crucial”.

Effective communication lies at the heart of Stage 6 and the Higher School Certificate. As educators we know that writing is an essential component of communication.

In order to maximise student outcomes in Stage 6 and in the Higher School Certificate students need to be able to write clearly and with purpose in order to effectively express their understanding of the curriculum.

Effective writing doesn’t just happen it needs to be explicitly taught by capable and confident teachers. In addition to this, effective writing requires deliberate practise. Planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing are all crucial steps in writing.

In your classroom you could consider the following when you provide opportunities to write:

  • provide regular opportunities for students to write
  • allow students to choose what to write about
  • provide opportunities for students to write for real people and for relevant or real-life purposes
  • regularly model the writing process and explicitly teach writing
  • provide students with opportunities to build content knowledge before writing
  • analyse exemplar texts with the students
  • provide opportunities for students to learn new vocabulary each week
  • provide scaffolds for planning to write, for example, graphic organisers
  • and provide timely, specific and meaningful feedback.

The Stage 6 literacy in context, writing resources explicitly teach skills for writing in the context of your subject and provide opportunities for students to engage with writing in a regular, sustained and explicit manner.

[End of transcript]


Download the Mathematics activities

The following activities appear as a sequence, with one set of activities informing the next. To support students in effectively using the specific terminology for their subject the activities begin with vocabulary teaching and learning. Next, the planning for writing section supports students to engage in analysing exemplars and practising their own writing. In this section they also build the field and prepare for a writing task. Once students have practised the vocabulary, have analysed exemplars, and have built their knowledge they move to the third set of activities and engage with writing a response. Teachers and students then provide feedback to inform where to next for their literacy teaching and learning.

Where to next?

For further support:


Category:

  • Teaching and learning

Topics:

  • Professional development
  • Stage 6
  • Writing skills

Business Unit:

  • Educational Standards
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