Review of Article 1

Bosse, Michael. Faulconer, Johna. Learning and Assessing Mathematics through Reading and Writing. School Science and Mathematics. January 2008

I chose to reflect on the first article that I will be using for my inquiry...... Bosse, Michael. Faulconer, Johna. Learning and Assessing Mathematics through Reading and Writing. For the past few weeks, I have been interviewing my students about their views of hands-on, creative assessments being used to learn math concepts. Quite a few of my fourth grade students stated that you CANNOT learn math through creative writing or art activities and I am hoping that my inquiry project will change their views. 


I truthfully am a bit unsure of how to implement such activities because I have never seen writing or art truly used in a mathematics classroom. "Beyond word problems and open-ended questions concluding exercise sets in the textbook, most students report that they do not read and write in mathematics classrooms and/or only read the smallest amount of text necessary to accomplish homework"These words written by the authors of this article very much display the views of the children in my classroom. Upon reading the article, I was pleased to see that they provided me with quite a few examples of ways to appropriately implement writing into the mathematics curriculum:
-free writing, mathematics autobiography, writing letter to teachers, proof writing, and rewriting lecture notes, journal writing


I thought that the letter writing and journal entries were a very interesting idea. As a child, I struggled immensely with mathematics but at times was too embarrassed to speak up and say that I needed help. This caused me to fall behind in my studies very quickly and become even more self- conscious of my math abilities. If you asked the children to write confidential letters or journal entries about their view of the lesson, what they learned, questions that they have, or even just stating that they need extra help can provide excellent and useful data for the teacher. 


The authors discuss the fact "that addressing purpose, audi- ence, and climate are necessary' for effective leaming of mathematics through reading and writing." I believe that this quote is stating the fact that differentiation is crucial to the implementation of reading and writing. My classroom especially has a wide range of ability levels and it would be unwise to assign the same assignment for all children in the classroom. The fact that I am only working with a small group of students at a time makes differentiation much more possible. 


Overall, I thought that this is an excellent article that is so closely related to my research topic. Many of the topics discussed in the text have eased my worries and provided me with viable resources and activities to implement into the mathematics curriculum.