I have been doing extensive research and reflection on what I do as a mathematics teacher in the classroom and have found that most research suggest I continue to demand that my students write. Joan Countryman’s book is very much in line with my teaching goals as a math teacher. She talks about the need to write to learn and how it happens in the classroom.
 She describes three main types of student writing: expository, expressive, and personal writing. I think I use personal writing most often in my classroom. I use journaling to get my students to think about the math process and I ask them to talk to me about their concerns and questions. I hope to use journaling as a “pre-test†to get students to start thing about how new material can relate to material they already know. This type of writing will usually be non-graded, but I want to respond to each student each time they submit a journal write.
I have been using math autobiographies since my training in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and have found students actually enjoy this activity. Often students use this opportunity to set the bar low, to lower my expectations. I like it because it gives me the chance to get to know my students sooner. These little personal clips go along way in letting me know who and where each one of them is at this point in time. Joan also talks about her use of autobiographies and how students look at their own learning, sharing shows they are not alone in math anxieties, and how it brings the students personal feelings out to her as teacher.
Joan has a chapter on formal writing and it interested me as I have shied away from this type of activity at the college level, maybe because of my own insecurities about my writing skills. I see from her examples how I, as a teacher, will miss opportunities for students to explore deeper levels of mathematical thinking. I am going to develop such an activity for this fall and walk my students though the process of pre-writing, drafting, revision, editing and publishing. Who knows, maybe I will be a part of creating a mathematical scholar.
