Student Writing in Math

"I recently attended several reading PGOs and have come to realize the importance of using reading and writing in a math classroom. Mainly, I am finding that by incorporating more techniques, such as graphic organizers, that more of my students are able to understand the material we cover in class. Besides that, I am better able to determine the varying levels at which students understand the material. For instance, I chose to determine whether students truly understood the differences and similarities of various shapes, namely prisms and pyramids. I provided students with the writing prompt “Write a paragraph about the similarities and the differences between prisms and pyramids” and gave them time to work on it in class. I then collected the paragraphs and read them over to determine who in class truly understood the material and who still needed some more assistance. I found that there were a variety of responses, and that I truly did not do as great a job teaching about those two basic solids as I had originally thought. I have included two examples of the student work I collected. It is obvious student A has an excellent understanding of the material and is able to make comparisons to real-life examples. However, student B is not at the same level of understanding. Although he understands the basic differences of the two shapes, he is not able to make the same connections that student A has made."