Defeating My Arch Nemesis: Using Writing to Learn Math

When I was in first grade, a skinny six-year old sporting long piggy tails and buck teeth, I quickly learned that math was very hard for me.  Longingly I watched my friends go out for recess while I sat inside and attempted to fix the math problems I had done incorrectly earlier. I just couldn't do them right.

And when I couldn't do them right, my teacher would sit me in the corner. Humiliating. I was the girl constantly in tears in the corner, and the cute boy in class (who was a math whiz) thought I was some sort of weirdo (which I am....but still).

The experience created an instant mental math block that I have fought  my entire life. The rest of my grade school career was bleak in the math department, and I have to admit that I never passed a high school Algebra class.

When I started my college career at Parkland College, back in the mid-90s, I had to take basic math. I was not surprised and slowly worked my way up to beginning Algebra. The first day of my college Algebra class sent me into nervous fits. I felt like my six-year old self, only with straighter teeth and shorter hair.

I was determined to do better, and I only wanted to take this class one time. Due to the fact that I came from a large family with not so large of an income, it was up to me to pay for my schooling, and I knew that I did not want to pay to re-take an Algebra class. So, I had resolved to work my butt off and figure this whole math thing out even if it caused my hair to go prematurely gray.

I walked up to my professor before class, wish I could remember her name because she changed my life, and told her of my math woes. She smiled and nodded and asked me what my interests were. At the time my interests circulated around my boyfriend (so stupid!), but I managed to say something like, "Well, I really like English and Theater." She then told me that she had some tricks up her sleeves that could help me with my struggles, and we started class.

Well, I didn't believe her.

I had been told, by many teachers and tutors, that they knew exactly what to do to "fix" me and cure me of my math ignorance. So naturally I just took a deep breath preparing to weather the storm.

After my professor had handed out the syllabus, explained the schedule, and let us introduce ourselves, she dismissed the class for the day--then quickly asked me to stay for a few minutes. She told me that I would need a separate notebook for the class that would become my Algebra Writing log.  I looked at her like she was crazy.

She laughed.

"Kelly, have you ever done journal entry work in your writing or English classes?" she asked. I nodded yes and told her that journaling was one of my favorite things to do.  She then told me that I would be doing this for my homework and in-class activities.  My professor took out a notebook and showed me exactly what I would be writing in my log--it looked something like this:

• Date
• Topic or Chapter/Assignment Name
• Description of pages read in textbook, lecture notes, and in-class activity notes
• Main points from the section being assigned in a bullet point list
• Summary of main points from book/class written in paragraph form

Not only did she have me do this weekly math log, but she also assigned me paragraphs to write.  My professor would write an equation on the board each week, usually on Monday, and by Friday a paragraph was due to her that explained how to solve the problem and why I had decided to solve it in that way. 

I was kind of shocked that I was using writing do help me understand math.  I had never thought that "math" people wrote. In the article "Writing to Learn Mathematics" Bernadette Russek says, "Contrary to popular belief mathematicians must write and must write well...Writing is a valuable assessment tool. It is used to assess attitudes and beliefs, mathematics ability, and ability to express ideas clearly" (36).  Russek also suggests that writing is often used in the math department to "...open doors of communication with students who may have math anxiety or who have 'I hate math' feelings, students who have never really 'spoken' to their mathematics professors before" (36). 

I feel as if Russek might have been directing that last bit directly at me....

Thanks to my professor's willingness to use writing in the math classroom, I passed beginning Algebra with an A. The first A I had ever received in a math class my entire life. I'm still proud of that A.

I moved onward and upward and eventually managed to tackle a college Algebra class. I did not get another A, but I did get a B, and I was able to mark math off of the list of classes I needed to take to finish school.

I really, really, really wanted to take my passing math grades to my former first grade teacher and say, "HA! Take that! See! If you would have just been willing to teach me math in a language I understood, instead of sitting me in a corner, I would have been done with this a LONG TIME AGO."

I wisely did not do that, but man did I ever dream of it.

After I completed my general education requirements, I thought that I would never have to take a math class again. However, my children have proved me wrong (as they usually do), and I find myself helping them with their math homework. Unfortunately, my kids also struggle with math and I sometimes feel as if maybe I should not be the person helping them. 

It's kind of like the blind leading the blind.  So, we write about math. Each day we write out their assignment in paragraph form and then we talk about it and pretty soon those math problems are getting solved correctly. 

If you would like to read the rest of Bernadette Russek's article it can be found here.  As Writing Across the Curriculum becomes more prominent on college campuses and within K-12 curriculum, I'm sure that writing in the math class will be used more often.

EIU President William Perry has used writing in his math classroom, and in an April 2011 interview with the EIU Writes Blog writers (found here) Perry said that: "...mathematics has a language all its own, you all know; you’ve taken math, so you do a math homework; it’s one set of language. But now if you’re going to talk about how that relates to maybe football head injuries or supply and demand, you know these kind of things, you have to interpolate that for your audience. You have to convert mathematical concepts to plain English, and so that’s a valid exercise because I think in all of our lives, we’re always interacting with multiple audiences." 

To me multiple audiences means multiples discourses, which then equals various types of verbal and cultural languages. In a perfect world teachers will be able to teach in a method that answers the needs of all of their students, but that perfect world is more than likely not going to happen in my lifetime.

So, instead of waiting for that perfect world to arrive, try remembering the skinny little six-year old sitting in the corner of her first grade classroom. Don't be afraid to speak to students in languages they understand--even if that means writing in a math classroom.

Writing Really is Everywhere!

Papers, papers, papers. They come in all different forms and styles, especially while you’re in your undergrad program at EIU. I remember thinking that just English majors wrote papers, and everyone else was home free, but I was very wrong. So I wanted to make sure that everyone realized how important the skill of writing is to your future career.

Regardless of your major the Writing Center here at EIU is here to help!

We don’t edit papers, but rather those of us that work in the Writing Center want to help writer’s gain skills that will help them create skills to help with other classes and the careers that you so choose. Because regardless of the place of employment that you end up in, writing will be an aspect of your job, even if it’s engineering or working maintenance.

At the Writing Center we will help you with any assignment that you may have that’s writing related. Here are some examples of the array of things we can help students with.

Narratives

Lesson Plans

Case Studys

Research Papers in any area

Business Proposals

Aspects of writhing a thesis in a masters program

Grad School Application Essays

Essays for scholarship

Lab Reports

APA, MLA, Chicago citations

These are just few of the many areas of writing that you can get help with at the Writing Center.

So don’t be afraid or scared if you hear you have a lot of writing to do in a science class or any other class. Lab reports also require a lot of writing and analysis, and people at the Writing Center can help if you get confused on format or citing or just figuring out where to begin! The biggest help at times may be to also know that you aren’t alone. There are many other students out there who need help on their writing.

Putting Yourself on the Page: How to End Your Writing with Applause, Not Snores

For some, the most difficult part about the writing process is getting started. If you find that you struggle with where to begin, there are a few things that you can do in order to have a smoother take-off and a more exciting writing process.


1. Writing what you know plays a big role in the writing process. Even though many papers we write will be discovery drafts, starting with what you know is an excellent way to get your ideas brewing. Let's say, for instance, you are a trapeze artist who wants to write a letter to the manufacturer of ladders. Although there has to be a certain amount audience awareness, the content of the letter is equally important. Tell the manufacturers your story. Why is the quality of this ladder so important to you and your career? Give specifics. If you are climbing up the ladder and it breaks, your act is in jeopardy. So give a detailed account of your situation. Make yourself stand out. Tell the story about how you've practiced since you were five. Make them laugh. Make them cry.

2. Try to avoid using generic words. People love Cocoa Puffs for a reason. They are the non-generic brand. They have a cute little bird named Sonny and a catch phrase. They aren't just "Chocolate Puffs" with a brown box and a promise of good cereal. The two cereals may be the same, but only one of them makes you go "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs."

3. Write what you love. Chances are, when you are writing about something that you truly care about, the reader will be more likely to acknowledge your integrity. Although sometimes we have to write about things that we don't particularly enjoy writing about, there is always a way to turn it into something you care about. Say, for instance, that I have to write about two poems that I don't particularly like, or that I didn't get. Try to find something in the poem that you enjoy: the image of a chicken, the subject of love or family, the time period it was written in, nature, Anything! There are infinite ways of exploring a poem and there is bound to be a way that suits you. Writing can always be one-size-fits-all. You can always connect to it because it is your creation. You are the one who gets to choose if your writing is as exciting as the return of your favorite TV show, or as dull as a plastic spoon.

Part 2 of the Interview with President Perry: Living the Examined Life--Writing is the Key

"And writing's the key."

[Houchens]
We often hear people cite certain authors or texts as being kind of their inspiration for how they write or why they write. Do you have any authors or texts that kind of inspired you?

[Perry]
Well, Tony Hillerman is one, and the reason is that he respects culture he respects the culture he’s writing about. And in fact he was recognized by, I believe, the Navajo for his sensitivity to that because these are murder mysteries, and they’re written in the four corners region. So, you have these two, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, these detectives and but also because you learn something from what he’s writing.

I remember one book in particular he’s talking about, I can’t remember if its Leaphorn or Chee is interviewing a grandmother who’s related to someone who may be involved in a crime and so forth and so on, and he talks about the rhythm of the conversation—that there is a rhythm. And that sometimes if you wait just a little bit longer, then the person will say the most important thing next.

And so that’s something that’s important in the way we interact with people, certainly as an administrator or a teacher or a friend, you know. If you’re a good listener and if you wait, sometimes the next thing will be the most important thing.

Wallace Stegner—Angle of Repose was a very challenging book for me, very affecting because it’s about life. Angle of Repose, if you pile up sand or coal or anything like that, the pile makes a certain angle with the ground. That’s the angle of repose, and so the sense I got out of the book is as life goes on we settle into an angle of repose ourselves through our life experiences, and that’s a valuable lesson for me too because we all go through things in our lives. And they affect us in different ways, and we have to know how to deal with, if you will, the gravity of life, but we can struggle against it, but we’re not like sand where its poured and that’s it, so I thought that interesting.

T.S. Elliot, some of his poetry, you know, been very influential for me, and then just in terms of something exciting to read I think Alexander Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo. He can spin a great yarn, sort to speak.

Those all, those have been influential to me. One author who I heard speak once that said something very important, in my opinion, was Robert Olen Butler and who won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction several years ago. And he said that every time he writes he has to, in so many words, get past his demons—that it’s always in his process.

Any time you write, of course it depends on the purpose of your writing, and sometimes it’s very personal because you’re dealing with something, that’s different than writing a memo or email obviously. But when you’re writing something that’s really deeply connected to who you are, I think you do have to go through that, and you have to recognize that, and you do to have deal with it. And I think sometimes what happens when we hit that wall, sometimes we can’t push through it, and sometimes that’s why we can’t write because there’s an unanticipated block, but if we know it’s coming, sometimes we can work our way through it.

[Kory]
In a way, in the Writing Center I think that plays out when people come in with a personal statement. Why do I want to go to graduate school?

[Perry]
Right.

[Kory]
I mean you really get, but people are also very receptive to talking about that. I mean, those are some of the most productive conversations we have in here because the writer cares deeply.

[Perry]
Right.

[Kory]
About the outcome, but also they’ve been asked to write about themselves and externalize things they’ve been thinking.

[Perry]
Right and I think writing in general in terms of Integrative Learning, there is a self-examination that occurs either voluntarily or involuntarily. And that’s another value of I think writing and its connection, very strong connection with Integrative Learning is, well what is it, the unexamined life is not worth living.

So, one of the main purposes of college I think is that self-examination and understanding what are our values, how did we come to have these values, what are our presuppositions, challenging our own presuppositions about the way things are and what’s the way they should be. And how do I take philosophy and history and sociology and all the courses that I am taking, how do I pull that together to formulate my approach to the world, how do I frame my world view?

And writing’s the key.

Part 1 of the Interview with President Perry: Writing & Making Connections

"Well, I think it’s connected to Integrative Learning." 

[Taylor] 

President Perry, thanks for coming to the Writing Center for the interview for EIU Writes, and we’re just going to ask you a few questions about writing and writing at EIU.

[Perry] 

Great. My pleasure to be here.

[Hebeler] 

Okay, President Perry, you just told us you that you are a mathematician.

[Perry] 

Right.

[Hebeler] 

And that was one of my first questions: What was your professional background before you came to Eastern in 2007, and what kinds of writing did you have to do before you became President?

[Perry]             

Right. Well, I was at another university for 36 years, and I went through the ranks in mathematics, and then I got into administration, so I wrote mathematical research papers. I wrote some textbooks, a handbook, and then I started writing memos and plans—those kind of administrative things that you do. So, professionally, that’s what almost all of my writing has been. I’ve served on some boards for nonprofits and so occasionally. In the positions there, I would have to write things. Those were more planning documents or sometimes a letter, letters to constituencies.

[Hebeler] 

Okay. Since you’ve been here at Eastern, have you developed any new kinds of writing projects that you didn’t do before? I know you’ve got a newsletter that I’ve seen on the website.

[Perry] 

Well, of course there are many ways to reach different constituencies, and I’ve been more in contact with alumni here than I had been in my previous position, so using electronic ways to reach out there has been important. But also I think emails to the campus community—I haven’t done too many of those because I think they can create fatigue—but I try to do those in an episodic basis, so that they remain effective.

So, on the side for the hobby writing, I’ve done some poetry, just for personal consumption, you know, and some 5-7-5 haiku. I find that’s interesting because you have to be very spare. Every word counts. And often times you have to really push your way through an emotion or something that’s working on you at that particular time, so I find that, I find that satisfying as well.

[Hebeler] 

Thanks.

[Taylor] 

Well, one of my colleagues reminded me when you came to the English department meeting that you mentioned that you use writing in your math courses.

[Perry] 

Right.

[Taylor] 

And a lot of people have this conception that math or the sciences … not much writing in them. So why do you use writing in your math classes and what’s the payoff?

[Perry] 

Well, I think it’s connected to Integrative Learning. So, one of the things I did in the past, in a linear algebra class I taught, was I asked the students to pick something in the world that was related to mathematics, and that was interesting experience because they didn’t immediately … nothing sprung to mind, so I had to sort of prep myself and said what about movies? So I said, oh well  A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting and these kind of things, kind of tells you about when I was doing this, but and then I would mention maybe an article or two maybe that had appeared in a newspaper or a magazine or something like this, so they started to get the drift and gradually built a list of things. So then I said, “You can approach it from any point of view you want, but I want there to be somehow mathematics as maybe a generator of the project,” you know. So they were all over the map, and it was really great.

One I remember in particular was this engineering student wrote about A Beautiful Mind and was talking about actors having to portray people with mental illness say—the sense being that you couldn’t really do that and as an actor. You couldn’t do that and so it was intellectually dishonest for an actor to actually take that on, to portray someone, and that was interesting because then you start to really get talking about some interesting nonmathematical things about the arts, about acting, and so forth and so on. But then some others were connected … different kinds of writing. One person turned in a digital project; another person turned in a voice project, and so I allowed a lot of freedom there, and I started to see there’s a lot of creativity out there and mathematics sometimes can provide the spark for it.

Now here with Integrative Learning last fall when I taught linear algebra developed some three projects, and students gave preferences, and they ended up being the project group, and the outcome of that was then to write a reflective paper on connections that this made for them with maybe the career they had planned or other courses they had taken, so forth and so on.

And, the point is that if you are going to relate mathematics to something else, you have to—mathematics has a language all its own, you all know; you’ve taken math, so you do a math homework; it’s one set of language. But now if you’re going to talk about how that relates to maybe football head injuries or supply and demand, you know these kind of things, you have to interpolate that for your audience. You have to convert mathematical concepts to plain English, and so that’s a valid exercise because I think in all of our lives, we’re always interacting with multiple audiences.

We’re trying to make a connection one way or another. I think social networks give you examples of ways people are trying to connect and connecting, so having a common set of language and interactions is an important part of it. So, I think the payoff—the payoff—is for people to see that mathematics does connect with the world, but it’s like having an adaptor like when you when you travel to Europe you got to have the special adapter and all that. It’s learning how to do that, and if you can learn to do that with mathematics and something else, then I think you can start to make the connections in multiple fields.