Writing in the Mathematics Classroom: Does It Have an Effect on Students’ Mathematical Reasoning?

In this action research study of my classroom of 5th grade mathematics, I investigate how to improve students’ written explanations to and reasoning of math problems. For this, I look at journal writing, dialogue, and collaborative grouping and its effects on students’ conceptual understanding of the mathematics. In particular, I look at its effects on students’ written explanations to various math problems throughout the semester. Throughout the study students worked on math problems in cooperative groups and then shared their solutions with classmates. Along with this I focus on the dialogue that occurred during these interactions and whether and how it moved students to a deeper level of conceptual understanding. Students also wrote responses about their learning in a weekly math journal. The purpose of this journal is two-fold. One is to have students write out their ideas. Second, is for me to provide the students with feedback on their responses. My research reveals that the integration of collaborative grouping, journaling, and active dialogue between students and teacher helps students develop a deeper understanding of mathematics concepts as well as an increase in their confidence as problem solvers. The use of journaling, dialogue, and collaborative grouping reveals themselves as promising learning tasks that can be integrated in a mathematics curriculum that seeks to cultivate students’ thinking and reasoning.

Journal Writing in Mathematics: Exploring the Connections between Math Journals and the Completion of Homework Assignments

In this action research study of sixth grade mathematics, I investigate how the use of written journals facilitates the learning of mathematics for my students. I explore furthermore whether or not these writing journals support students to complete their homework. My analysis reveals that while students do not access their journals daily, when students have the opportunity to write more about one specific problem--such as finding the relationship between the area of two different sized rectangles – they, are nevertheless, more likely to explain their thoughts in-depth and go beyond the traditional basic steps to arrive at a solution. This suggests the value of integrating journal writing in a math curriculum as it can facilitate classroom discussion from the students’ written work.

Writing in a Mathematics Classroom: A Form of Communication and Reflection

In this action research study, I investigated the use of journaling in my seventh grade mathematics classroom. I discovered that journaling can be a very rewarding and beneficial experience for me and for my students. Through journaling, my students became more adept at using correct mathematical terminology in writing and in speaking. The students also believed that they learned the content more deeply and retained it better. Additionally, implementing mathematical journals caused me to emphasize the use of correct terminology and thorough explanations of mathematical thinking in classroom discussions. As a result of this research, I plan to refine my journaling process and continue to use mathematical journals with my future classes.

Writing In Math Class? Written Communication in the Mathematics Classroom

In this action research study of my seventh grade mathematics classroom, I investigated what written communication within the mathematics classroom would look like. I increased vocabulary instruction of specific mathematical terms for my students to use in their writing. I also looked at what I would have to do differently in my teaching in order for my students to be successful in their writing. Although my students said that using writing to explain mathematics helped them to better understand the math, my research revealed that student writing did not necessarily translate to improved scores. After direct instruction and practice on math vocabulary, my students did use the vocabulary words more often in their writing; however, my students used the words more like they would in spelling sentences rather than to show what it meant and how it can be applied within their written explanation in math. In my teaching, I discovered I tried many different strategies to help my students be successful. I was very deliberate in my language and usage of vocabulary words and also in my explanations of various math concepts. As a result of this research, I plan to continue having my students use writing to communicate within the mathematics classroom. I will keep using some of the strategies I found successful. I also will be very deliberate in using vocabulary words and stress the use of vocabulary words with my students in the future.

Discourse and Cooperative Learning in the Math Classroom

In this action research study of my 6th grade math classroom I investigated the effects of increased student discourse and cooperative learning on the students’ ability to explain and understand math concepts and problem solving, as well as its effects on their use of vocabulary and written explanations. I also investigated how it affected students’ attitudes. I discovered that increased student discourse and cooperative learning resulted in positive changes in students’ attitudes about their ability to explain and understand math, as well as their actual ability to explain and understand math concepts. Evidence in regard to use of vocabulary and written explanations generally showed little change, but this may have been related to insufficient data. As a result of this research, I plan to continue to use cooperative learning groups and increased student discourse as a teaching practice in all of my math classes. I also plan to include training on cooperative learning strategies as well as more emphasis on vocabulary and writing in my math classroom.

Why Are We Writing? This is Math Class!

In this action research study of my classroom of 8th grade mathematics, I investigated writing in the content area. I have realized how important it is for students to be able to communicate mathematical thoughts to help gain a deeper understanding of the content. As a result of this research, I plan to enforce the use of writing thoughts and ideas regarding math problems. Writers develop skills and generate new thoughts and ideas every time they sit down to write. Writing evolves and grows with ongoing practice, and that means thinking skills mature along with it. Writing is a classroom activity which offers the possibility for students to develop a deeper understanding of the mathematics they are learning. Writing encourages students to reflect on and explore their reasoning and to extend their thinking and understanding. Students are often content with manipulating symbols and doing routine math problems, without ever reaching a deep and personal understanding of the material. My goal through this project was to help students understand why they were doing certain operations to solve math problems. Writing is an essential tool for thinking and is fundamental in every class, in every subject, and on every level of thinking; skills in writing must be practiced and refined, and students must have frequent opportunities to write across the curriculum. Communication in mathematics is not a simple and unambiguous activity.

Pissing Glass and the Body Crass: Adaptations of the Scatological in Théophile

Examination of scatological motifs in Théophile de Viau’s (1590-1626) libertine, or ‘cabaret’ poetry is important in terms of how the scatological contributes to the depiction of the Early Modern body in the French lyric.1 This essay does not examine Théophile’s portrait of the body strictly in terms of the ‘Baroque’ or the ‘neo-Classical.’ Rather, it argues that the scatological context in which he situates the body (either his, or those of others), reflects a keen sensibility of the body representative of the transition between these two eras. Théophile reinforces what Bernard Beugnot terms the body’s inherent ‘eloquence’ (17), or what Patrick Dandrey describes as an innate ‘textuality’ in what the body ‘writes’ (31), and how it discloses meaning. The poet’s scatological lyric, much of which was published in the Pamasse Satyrique of 1622, projects a different view of the body’s ‘eloquence’ by depicting a certain realism and honesty about the body as well as the pleasure and suffering it experiences. This Baroque realism, which derives from a sense of the grotesque and the salacious, finds itself in conflict with the Classical body which is frequently characterized as elegant, adorned, and ‘domesticated’ (Beugnot 25). Théophile’s private body is completely exposed, and, unlike the public body of the court, does not rely on masking and pretension to define itself. Mitchell Greenberg contends that the body in late sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century French literature is often depicted in a chaotic manner because, ‘the French body politic was rent by tumultuous religious and social upheavals’ (62).2 While one could argue that Théophile’s portraits of a syphilis-ridden narrators are more a reflection of his personal agony rather than that of France as a whole, what emerges in Théophile is an emphasis on the movement, if not decomposition of the body.3 Given Théophile’s public persona and the satirical dimension of his work, it is difficult to imagine that the degeneration he portrays is limited only to his individual experience. On a collective level, Théophile reflects what Greenberg calls ‘a continued, if skewed apprehension of the world in both its physical and metaphysical dimensions’(62–3) typical of the era. To a large extent, the body Théophile depicts is a scatological body, one whose deterioration takes the form of waste, disease, and evacuation as represented in both the private and public domain. Of course, one could cast aside any serious reading of Théophile’s libertine verse, and virtually all of scatological literature for that matter, as an immature indulgence in the prurient. Nonetheless, it was for his dissolute behavior and his scatological poetry that Théophile was imprisoned and condemned to death. Consequently, this part of his work merits serious consideration in terms of the personal and poetic (if not occasionally political) statement it represents. With the exception of Claire Gaudiani’s outstanding critical edition of Théophile’s cabaret lyric, there exist no extensive studies of the poet’s libertine œuvre.4 Clearly however, these poems should be taken seriously with respect to their philosophical and aesthetic import. As a consequence, the objective becomes that of enhancing the reader’s understanding of the lyric contexts in which Théophile’s scatological offerings situate themselves. Structurally, the reader sees how the poet’s libertine ceuvre is just that — an integrated work in which the various components correspond to one another to set forth a number of approaches from which the texts are to be read. These points of view are not always consistent, and Théophile cannot be thought of as writing in a sequential manner along the lines of devotional Baroque poets such as Jean de La Ceppède and Jean de Sponde. However, there is a tendency not to read these poems in their vulgar totality, and to overlook the formal and substantive unity in this category of Théophile’s work. The poet’s resistance to poetic and cultural standards takes a profane, if not pornographic form because it seeks to disgust and arouse while denigrating the self, the lyric other, and the reader. Théophile’s pornography makes no distinction between the erotic and scatological. The poet conflates sex and shit because they present a double form of protest to artistic and social decency while titillating and attacking the reader’s sensibilities. Examination of the repugnant gives way to a cathartic experience which yields an understanding of, if not ironic delight in, one’s own filthy nature.

Improving Mathematics Problem Solving Through Written Explanations

In this action research study of two classrooms of 7th grade mathematics, I investigated how requiring written explanations of problem solving would affect students ability to problem solve, their ability to write good explanations, and how it would affect their attitudes toward mathematics and problem solving. I studied a regular 7th grade mathematics class and a lower ability 7th grade class to see if there would be any difference in what was gained by each group or any group. I discovered that there were no large gains made in the short time period of my action research. Some gains were made in ability to problem solve by my lower ability students over the 7 weeks that they did a weekly problem solving assignment. Some individual students felt that the writing had helped them in their problem solving because they needed to think and write each step. As a result of this research I plan to continue implementing writing in my classroom over the entire school year requiring a little more from students each time we problem solve and write.

A REVISIONARY APPROACH TO CROSS-CURRICULAR LITERACY WORK

In this dissertation, I use qualitative research methods to study relationships between compositionists and faculty in other disciplines in the context of cross-curricular literacy (CCL) work. Drawing on a two-year CCL project in the biology department, for which I was a participant observer, I argue that compositionists need to attend more carefully to issues that influence day-to-day interactions with disciplinary faculty in order to develop more meaningful CCL relationships. Toward that end, I offer a revisionary approach to cross-curricular literacy work that cultivates complex relationships by delaying consensus and embracing disconnection and disorientation. More specifically, I employ revisionary stance as a discursive strategy to complicate three key concepts in CCL literature and scholarship—expertise, change, and outcomes. I re-vision three texts produced during my time in the biology department in order to illuminate the complexities of negotiating expertise, recognizing change, and pursuing outcomes in CCL contexts. Given the reciprocal relationship between discursive and material change (Lee), I maintain that revision of CCL discourse can inspire revision on a pedagogical level, shaping how compositionists and disciplinary faculty participate in CCL interactions. Thus, a revisionary approach leads me to conceptualize revisionary pedagogy for cross-curricular literacy work. I theorize revisionary pedagogy as a means of fostering pedagogical relationships in CCL contexts, complicating how relationships are framed in traditional Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines scholarship. The literature advances three main conceptual models of CCL, each of which embraces expertise, change, and outcomes in ways that sponsor potentially problematic relationships between compositionists and disciplinary faculty. I draw on Composition scholars’ rich conceptualization of revision (Jung; Lee; Welch) and pedagogy (Kameen; Qualley; Stenberg) to challenge the litany of next-best models and imagine alternative possibilities for relationships in CCL contexts. Revisionary pedagogy is a means of approaching material circumstances that reconstitutes how compositionists and disciplinary faculty conceive of and participate in CCL relationships.