Writing Instruction

I enjoyed writing assignments that had topics in which I could relate to, had an interest in, or felt passionate about. These were my favorite types. My absolute favorite writing assignment was a very personal essay in which we were supposed to write about events from our lives that have shaped who we are today. This was a very emotional essay for me to write and so personal that in the end I wasn’t sure if I wanted to submit it or not. I truly enjoyed writing it because I really had to dive into feelings about my family and my parents’ divorce. This essay required me to remember feelings I had growing up…it was interesting how I could recall my childlike feelings from years ago. Bringing these feelings back to my mind also brought adult like questions and a new perspective as an adult; I was able to almost feel/see my mother’s emotions from this earlier time in my life. I really enjoyed this and began to feel much closer to my mother. This teacher taught us to take a piece of paper and just quick write random thoughts, memories, and ideas that came to our minds. While doing this I was amazed at the overload of feelings and memories that came to mind, even though much of it brought back sad memories, it also brought back many fun and joyful memories. I loved this assignment mostly because I was able to write about something that meant so much to me. I also loved that I was able to express myself in my own way and in my own words.

I didn’t like the assignments that were on topics that I didn’t know anything about, had little to no interest in, or those that had so many specifics that I couldn’t make it my own in any way. I had to write a research paper once on an ancient artifact in my Civilizations class…I did NOT like this paper. There was little information on this artifact and I didn’t have enough information for an entire essay. I really struggled putting the information into my own words, so it was difficult to not just copy the sentences word for word. Also, I hadn’t taken my English courses yet that taught me how to properly cite phrases, etc. This made it very time consuming and difficult to do this portion of the paper. All in all…I was happy to be done with it and I never wanted to write about something so boring every again.

From the reading for math majors, I liked how Steele explained that writing can help students understand their lessons in a much deeper way that simply knowing the algorithms to solving problems. This helps them to develop a deep conceptual understanding. I love this! It makes me excited to incorporate writing in my math classroom. This is a piece that I feel is different from when I was learning math. When I was learning, we were taught the algorithms so much more than the “why’s” of math, we were formula and memorization kids. I feel like now we are being told to teach this new way that we weren’t taught. It’s exciting that writing can help us accomplish this. I loved the example that the reading gave of the intermediate school where the students were asked to write a recipe for solving various problems, what a fun assignment. I completely agree with their math department’s mindset that “whatever you do in your life, you need to present it in an oral and written form.” I know that students will ask…why? They always do, right. This is a great explanation.

I think writing should be a permanent part of a math assignment. Our students should be able to explain in words what they are doing with numbers. For example, when they write a function, they should be able to explain what each piece means, instead of just (y = 99x + 50), they should also be able to say (The total cost of a plumber visit is equal to $99 per hour + $50 just for coming out). This helps them to understand exactly what each piece of the equation actually means.   This will help them visualize the graph of the function as well. Below I have included the graph below for fun, you can create these on www.desmos.com (this is a really easy and fun graphing website to work with).  A student would be able to see that no matter what, even if the plumber only comes for less than 1 minute, the cost will already be $50, if he stays for 1 hour, it will cost $149 and so on.  It’s so important for students to write about math, I plan to include this in most of my lessons/assignments.  I can include simple writing prompts like this one and also longer assignment like the essay that the students worked on from the reading.  There are endless opportunities for writing in math.