Synthesis Blog 4: Math in the Margins

MATH IN THE MARGINS 

SUMMARIZE 

This piece discusses how a group of math teachers, their students, and English Education researchers examined literacy practices within a classroom. What they found is that the writing practices that became present were very different that what the researchers originally anticipated. One group of high school students from rural Iowa and their math teacher maintained a two-year letter communication with fellow high school students and their math teacher in urban Massachusetts. What the researchers found is that the students authentically presented math situations to their pen pals across the country and were able to make meaningful connections with math content and real-world problems. This article discusses the importance of maintaining literacy practices in the classroom to help students deepen their understanding of the content and the world around them.

MAKE CONNECTIONS 

I found it very interesting that students tended to hyperextend their identities based on their geographic location. The author writes: "Anyone who knows Mike, including his teacher Deidra, knows that the language and word choices on the page do not reflect his everyday speech and vocabulary. Neither does the harsh sarcasm. But he "performed" these letters, positioning himself with his distant Revere friends and enacting a persona he imagined they expected" (19, 20). I learned in my Introduction to Sociology course from this past semester how identity affects our own perception of ourselves. This term is called the "Looking Glass Self" in which we perceive ourselves the way we assume others perceive us. It was really interested to see how the students described themselves and their hometowns based on the audience of the students across the country. They wrote about themselves with the perceptions they assumed their peers had of them. Although this is not the central argument of the article, I think this research shows an interesting point to consider in education: how we perceive our students and their abilities in school deeply affects how they perceive themselves. I like how the author mentions that although they did not write about themselves as one would perceive them on a daily basis, they still wrote authentically in a way that was engaging for them. 

CRITIQUE 

Although students were able to make meaningful connections by applying it to their own lives, I wonder practically speaking how this impacted students performance in terms of test scores. Making deep connections of the content is a major component of teaching and my personal reason for teaching. However, I question how effective this particular research is for these specific students. Making deep connections is great, however, applying these connections to actual content is the ultimate goal. I would be interested to learn more about the effectiveness of this research. 

EXPLAIN IMPORTANCE 

This research is importance, because it showed the impact of literacy in the math classroom. Students were able to explore themselves, while also learning in collaboration from students very different from them. They practiced writing authentically to a real audience, which in turn allowed them to make deep connections. Deep connection to the content helped students stay engaged, while learning much more than just the specific math content. 

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