[Retra]

I think STEM students should be writing more papers across the board. You shouldn't just solve problems and write down the solutions, you should be writing exposition on the methods you use, why they work, and what other options are available.

[InclinedPlane]

My writing ability developed in high school and college due to a few specific causes. 1: Being forced to write for my AP European History course in HS (the regular assignments were just lists of questions/prompts to be answered with a few sentences or a paragraph or so, it's amazing how valuable that experience was). 2: Writing proofs in advanced math courses (elementary analysis, abstract algebra, etc.) 3: Participating in usenet newsgroups (by far the biggest contributor).

P.S. I meant to point out the irony that English classes contributed comparatively little. Actually writing about something and putting in the effort to string together something coherent is what really exercises and builds writing abilities. It's nice to have some of the groundwork laid, but practice is by far the most important component.

[analog31]

I got the impression that the article was about K-12 education, where the kids aren't yet completely separated into STEM and non-STEM tracks. (Some kids get onto an accelerated math track). If the schools that my kids attend are typical, they do extensive amounts of writing in all of their subjects. The kind of writing that you describe was pretty common, through 5th grade.

In 6th grade and beyond, the school went to a more traditional math curriculum, I suspect due to milestones such as getting through algebra in 8th grade, etc. For the kids to do more writing in math class requires a choice of what they will spend less time on. Do they learn fewer math topics, get fewer assignments in Social Studies, or get less sleep?

Maybe I'm a freak, but as a student I greatly enjoyed the "pure" nature of math. In other subjects, I found that I could get good grades by basically filling pages with drivel. On the other hand I didn't just write down solutions. I was expected to show a derivation, and in many cases, a proof. I have a copy of my high school pre-calc textbook, and a large fraction of the chapter problems are proofs, which I loved. That's what motivated me to become a math major in college. Today, the proofs have disappeared.