Rethinking content literarcy

[Lauren]

The quote that stood out to me the most is “The mathematicians also emphasize that letters and symbols signify specific meanings in some cases but, as variables, change their meanings in other. Being able to read these symbols embedded in both English prose and algebraic equations were considered to be crucial."
This stood out to me the most because I am a math teacher. I see this everyday in my classes. If I don’t explain the math terms to my students they would have no idea what I was talking about. For example when multiplying exponents, you keep the base and add the exponents. If they didn’t know what exponent means they would have no idea where to begin
I also found it very interesting how they mention that mathematicians make a clear distinction between the informal or introductory material and the formal structure of definitions proofs and expiations. The concern that was mentioned is that students would not be able to make the distinction of what is being asked of them. I work with a couple of different textbooks and some go in more depth than others. The textbooks that clearly label what they are doing are a lot more understandable.

[Alison Koffler-Wise]

As someone who considers herself a "writing person," it was really interesting for me to think about how the literacy requirements in math are different from in English. As an English teacher, we're always navigating our way through lots of dense vocabulary, but when you're reading a piece of literature, you can use context clues to "fake" your way past lots of unfamiliar language. It's interesting to think that in math a learner is completely stymied if they can't get past the language. I wonder if there is some way that we can be crystal clear about things like this when working with the kids. It might add to their understanding of reading and writing in a given content area.

[FAITH MOXEY]

I agree with the idea that books that are simpler and explicit are more helpful in teaching math and science as well.As a student i would actually seek out any books that would simplyfy a
concept. Today not many students will do this but as teachers it is necessary to have a say in the texts that students use and encourage them to value them and use them instead of giving up when the teacher is not around to spoon feed them.


concept

[Carrie Schlechter]

Lauren,
It is amazing really how much writing and reading there is in math. At the teacher to teacher workshop I had attended a session on math. The amount of writing they had their junior high school students was quite amazing, however, I didn't feel it was at the same level that they covered in Shanahan's Jorunal Article.

[Joycelyn LaRocque]

i also feel that it's important for Math teachers to teach literacy because of the word problems the students have to do for tests. Math books still scare me. I think they should be more student friendly in terms of having more simplistic explanations.