Writing in Junior High Math (Geometry)

On a recent test, I decided to try something new in my classroom and use an essay question. The reason for this experimentation is that I had recently attended a PGO titled “Making Meaning Reading PGO Part I” and the presenter had brought a book with writing prompts in it. Multiple writing prompts fit with the material that we were doing at that time but the one that I choose had the students describe area and perimeter. I did not know what to expect out of this and was afraid that all of my students would simply state how to find the area. I read and graded the students answers to the question. To my great surprise, one of the first papers I corrected had the exact explanation that the area is the amount space inside a figure and that the perimeter is the distance around a figure. Only a few students had similar answers but I believe that this shows that they have a better understanding of area and perimeter than their classmates who only look at it as an equation used when asked. I plan to continue to use writing prompts on tests as well as an opener for class since there were many different questions available in the book that relate throughout the geometry curriculum. I believe that this would be a good opportunely to use think, share, pair int he math classroom.