Jordan Oyler Writing in Math

Jordan Oyler literature Review

Title: Writing in Math

Author: Marilyn Burns

Source: http://www.mathsolutions.com/documents/2004_Writing_in_Math.pdf

Summary:

Usually when you think of mathematics you don’t often correlate writing with it. That’s how I’ve felt in the past and don’t remember writing much about math when I was in school.  That’s the same thing Marilyn thought when she first chose math education as her major. It took her quite a few years to bridge that gap and integrate writing into her daily math teaching, but she now doesn’t teach math without it.  In her article she says, “Not only did I see how writing helped students think more deeply and clearly about mathematics, but I also discovered that students’ writing was an invaluable tool to help me assess their learning.” She mentions an important thing about writing in math is she’s not worried about how correct it is, but rather the content that is important and the ideas the kids are writing down. She talked about four different writing assignments she uses.  First keeping a journal, she provides the students with some type if paper or notebook to be used as their journal. This provides the students an ongoing record of their learning. She gives them a prompt and they go with it. Second is writing about solving math problems. This allows the students to build up their problem solving strategies as well as trying multiple strategies to solve a problem. Sharing is big here too so they hear other ways to get the right answer. Third is explaining mathematical ideas. During a specific unit she asked students t explain what they know about that topic then once she reads them she can guide her lessons to correct misconceptions. And last writing about learning processes. For this she often has students write about what they’ve been doing by writing a letter to parents or guests in their class about the topic. Or she has them write what they like or dislike.

Analysis:

With the common core there has been a big push on writing, in every subject. I chose this article for that very reason so I could get some ideas on how to better myself with writing in math. She broke it down nicely into four writing assignments she uses and I would like to see myself start integrating those ideas into my teaching. It is very useful and can help me better asses if my students really understand the subject.