Using Technology to Teach Reading and Writing.

I love having students write in my math class.  The common complaint is "This is not English!" and my reply is that you have to learn to communicate mathematical ideas so you need to practice. 

 We know that writing math is much different than say for English or Social Studies because it is multimodal in nature with language, numbers, formulas, mathematical representations, and visual representations. 

In addition, there are words which have different meanings in math than they do in English, such as product, or less than. Its important students understand the multiple means both general and mathematically.  so its good to provide opportunities for students to use that language.

One way is to create videos with one or five scenes depending on the topic.  Set it up so they need to create a story board, the script, and illustrations or visuals and have a practice before they film it.  If they work in groups, you usually have someone  who is an artist to create the visuals, someone else who loves to write and can produce the script, the person who loves being on screen, and the one who would rather be behind the camera.

Another choice if they do not want to do a video, might be to create a 30 second radio or internet spot that is voice only.  Again they have to create a story board, prepare the script, before they can record the commercial.  If they prefer, the group could produce a book using pages, word, or book creator which must have illustrations, the information in their own words, etc.

The topics could be based on vocabulary such as words with both a general and mathematical meaning, real world applications of mathematical formula such as the exponential growth of Uber and AirBnB, or perhaps how stores set the markup of product.  There are possible topics in the newspapers or online including reading graphs, determining which graph is more accurate, etc.

The activity could require them to defend a position and justify it.  Many students have trouble with that because they are not used to defending anything in math.  Furthermore, common core wants them to justify or explain their choices and these activities allow that to be incorporated.

This type of activity requires research, planning, writing understanding the math itself, and putting it all together into a final package.  Its important to have students use the language of mathematics and learn how to communicate their ideas.  This is more of a authentic application rather than many of the questions on tests. 

Furthermore, many students such as ELL students need to practice the reading and writing to develop their language skills and other students have never learned to express their ideas in verbal form because many classes focus only on solving mathematical problems.  This is a way to make it more fun and relevant while allowing time to practice.

Let me know what you think.  I'd love to hear.