First of all, I greatly admire your efforts to make your class better and help your students truly learn. There should be more teachers like you! but that's another discussion altogether.
As for ideas on how to relate English to math and science subjects, I think it's more about promoting inquiry and analysis than about learning math or science directly. Here are a few ideas that I don't think have been mentioned so far:
*Current Events: Have your students read a news article on or related to a math/science topic, then write about it and/or discuss with the class. Incorporating technology topics would probably be useful here, to hopefully spark their interest. Events could even be historical if you so desire.
*Health/Nutrition/Medicine: Valuable subject matter for them to know, and involves scientific research as well as statistics. I don't know what kind of math your students are taking but basic prob/stat material could be incorporated. The Double Helix might work here too, or just genetics-related material in general.
*Business/Economics: I don't know how accessible this would be to your students, but some might be interested in the stock market, or someday owning their own businesses. Might be handled better with group discussion or assignments. You could ask them to learn about successful math/science/technology related companies, or historical phenomena such as the Depression or the Industrial Revolution.
*The Scientific Method: This is two-fold - You could have students learn and write about the scientific method directly. But more than that, you could ask students to form hypotheses (scientific or otherwise) and gather evidence to support or refute them, then use this evidence to move from hypothesis to thesis.
I think the possibilities here are very broad, and that you shouldn't worry too much if you can't think of a way to relate things directly to math and science. If you can encourage students to think about what they are reading and articulate their thoughts in an organized fashion, you will have done a hell of a job.:)
There is zero value in analyzing Shakespeare. None. I definitely agree with your suggestions, but I completely disagree on this point. Literature in general, and Shakespeare in particular, are reflections of the world around us and therefore studying them is a valuable process. A piece of literature reflects the time and place in which it was written, therefore it teaches us about history and culture - perhaps not in a comprehensive way, but possibly a more approachable one. It also gives us insight into human behavior, helping us to become more self-aware and emotionally intelligent. More importantly, though, in studying literature we learn to think about what we are reading, to engage in it and question it, which is an ability that transfers directly to "harder" studies. Students need time to develop the ability to read and absorb at the same time. And while it may not exactly work out ideally in the average ninth-grade classroom, it doesn't mean we should pack up every copy of Othello and give up on the process.
He means they have to deal with a certain amount of material, so in order to fit in the essentials they have to focus on note-taking and labs rather than discussing and writing about science topics. Therefore the students are missing out on that component of their learning.
The Connections series rocked! We watched it in high school, in a philosophy-type class called Theory of Knowledge (IB, anyone? hehe) which was intended to pull all our other subjects together. It was slightly ridiculous at times and therefore entertaining, but actually quite effective at teaching some important (although certainly not comprehensive) history. I think it relates indirectly to math and science because it has some technology-related content, as well as some segments on important historical math/science discoveries and the resulting changes - it gives perspective, which is good to have, and makes for good writing assignments. Our class was assigned to research, construct and write Connections of our own, which I felt was both interesting and valuable.
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As for ideas on how to relate English to math and science subjects, I think it's more about promoting inquiry and analysis than about learning math or science directly. Here are a few ideas that I don't think have been mentioned so far:
*Current Events: Have your students read a news article on or related to a math/science topic, then write about it and/or discuss with the class. Incorporating technology topics would probably be useful here, to hopefully spark their interest. Events could even be historical if you so desire.
*Health/Nutrition/Medicine: Valuable subject matter for them to know, and involves scientific research as well as statistics. I don't know what kind of math your students are taking but basic prob/stat material could be incorporated. The Double Helix might work here too, or just genetics-related material in general.
*Business/Economics: I don't know how accessible this would be to your students, but some might be interested in the stock market, or someday owning their own businesses. Might be handled better with group discussion or assignments. You could ask them to learn about successful math/science/technology related companies, or historical phenomena such as the Depression or the Industrial Revolution.
*The Scientific Method: This is two-fold - You could have students learn and write about the scientific method directly. But more than that, you could ask students to form hypotheses (scientific or otherwise) and gather evidence to support or refute them, then use this evidence to move from hypothesis to thesis.
I think the possibilities here are very broad, and that you shouldn't worry too much if you can't think of a way to relate things directly to math and science. If you can encourage students to think about what they are reading and articulate their thoughts in an organized fashion, you will have done a hell of a job. :)
He means they have to deal with a certain amount of material, so in order to fit in the essentials they have to focus on note-taking and labs rather than discussing and writing about science topics. Therefore the students are missing out on that component of their learning.
The Connections series rocked! We watched it in high school, in a philosophy-type class called Theory of Knowledge (IB, anyone? hehe) which was intended to pull all our other subjects together. It was slightly ridiculous at times and therefore entertaining, but actually quite effective at teaching some important (although certainly not comprehensive) history. I think it relates indirectly to math and science because it has some technology-related content, as well as some segments on important historical math/science discoveries and the resulting changes - it gives perspective, which is good to have, and makes for good writing assignments. Our class was assigned to research, construct and write Connections of our own, which I felt was both interesting and valuable.