Teachers and their principal at MS 354, the School of Integrated Learning, in Crown Heights looked at their student data and knew what they needed to focus on. The school’s math scores are stellar. On ELA, students do fine on multiple choice, but they lose points on essays and constructed response.

Writing weakness is common in middle school, but what the School of Integrated Learning is doing about it is not. Math and ELA teachers combine forces, share classrooms and co-develop curriculum to help their students become better writers. With the support of PROSE, the program created by the 2014 contract to encourage redesign and innovation, their unorthodox approach has the blessing of both the Department of Education and the UFT, along with a collaborative principal’s enthusiastic guidance.

Sixth-grade math teacher Takitha Lindsey and ELA teacher Sharon Paradis often turn their side-by-side classrooms into one big class, where they co-teach writing skills through both literacy and math.

“Writing across the curriculum is our school’s instructional focus,” said Lindsey, and the joint classroom “happened organically — we have similar teaching styles.”

Combining forces

Paradis zeroed in on narrative writing in October, and Lindsey borrowed the techniques of narrative to have her students write explanations of their math processes. Lindsey uses a protocol for answering math questions that she dubbed “CER” — for claim, evidence, reasoning — which Paradis adopted. When Paradis introduced a writing support called a story frame, Lindsey adapted it for math.

One morning in December, the two were co-teaching a double-period class in writing argument. All of their 37 students packed into Paradis’ classroom. Lindsey oversaw students that needed help, while Paradis taught a whole-group mini-lesson. She introduced the concept of claim and counterclaim, slyly demonstrating by making an argument for year-round schooling, then feigning surprise and hurt to hear the students’ counterclaim: they didn’t want to spend every day of their lives in her classroom.

With both teachers coaching, the students tried their own argument: taking pro and con positions on whether to ban sugary drinks. All 37 got to work. Principal Monique Campbell came in to coach one table. The room crackled with energy.

The next day, they planned to re-divide their classes for a double period of math, in which Lindsey takes most of the students and Paradis keeps just 10. Paradis is a fluent Spanish speaker and can work with English language learners on math. “It frees up the other person to give more targeted instruction,” Lindsey explained.

Playing to strength

Down the hall, 7th-grade math teacher Elisha Boyd and 7th-grade ELA teacher Sherry-Ann Atkinson group their students for what they call peer tutoring. “Ms. Atkinson will take 12 kids and I will take the other 33 math students,” Boyd explained.

Because Atkinson is certified in special education, it makes sense for her to work intensively with the smaller group. Boyd, meanwhile, has a good number of advanced math students. Out of her 33, “20 will be taught and the other 13 will teach them” as peer math tutors, she said, allowing her to preside over a large group working at different levels. Research shows that strong students benefit from teaching their peers.

Chapter Leader Betty Nieves calls these practices “flexible class size.” Principal Campbell encourages the flexibility as a way to prompt staff to innovate without fear of breaking rules. “Trust has to come from everywhere,” she said.

PROSE has unleashed teachers’ strengths and creativity at the School of Integrated Learning, which is next to the Albany Houses and shares its building with a well-endowed charter and a school in the mayor’s renewal program.

And their innovations are showing results. While its ELA scores are still below the city average, the school exceeded all its progress, achievement, environment and achievement-gap targets on the latest School Quality Review.

“It’s exciting,” said Atkinson. “I can see a change. And you see it in the assessments. There is a lot of growth.”