Blogger-rithems

Of course we all know how literacy across the curriculum is a drum that has been beaten for many years now. Not to say that it isn't important, but how can I bring literacy into my math class that is authentic and engaging to my students?

I can have the students write out procedures in journals, hand out little scraps of paper for students to summarize today's lesson as an exit pass, practice open-ended questions graded by the light of some type of rubric...Yawn...When was the last time you heard a student yell, "Sweet, another math problem where I get to explain the what, how, and why I did each step of some archaic conundrum!" What are these students learning? That they can score a 1 out of 5 when math and literacy cross paths...Do they really digest the red remarks we leave them to help them improve?

We can model the correct outcomes and demonstrate "how its done", but are these students learning how they "solve a problem" or how you "do a problem". Isn’t' literacy about their ability to express their own thoughts and emotions in the written word. Yes, I said emotions. Why can't we bring some emotion into the math class? The question is how?

The reason for all of this ranting is the result of a failure on my part to try to engage students in a way I have never tried before. I asked students to post comments to a written prompt using a blog. It seemed harmless enough, but I don't think I asked a very good question on my first attempt. I asked, "Describe something you really do well. It could be anything from starting up World of Warcraft on your PC to baking your grandma's famous meatloaf; as long as it is a multi-step activity. Not only should you describe each step in detail, but how and why you perform each phase of your activity."

Some of the students did an excellent job. Being located in a very rural community several students posted excellent comments on such items as how saddle their beloved horse; other students gave detailed explanations on how to cook the "World's Greatest Mac and Cheese", how they first learned to swim, etc. I could tell by their enthusiastic comments that some real emotion was exercised.

...but many students missed the point. About half of the comments posted appeared to be stolen out of a cookbook. There was no emotion. The response to "why I did each step" was also missing. How can I classify these "Vulcan-ized" comments to an authentic experience when there were little to no feelings drawn upon? I can see now that an initial failure I presented to the students with was the lack of intrigue or passion I conveyed in my initial posted question. It was dry and boring.

Now I am at a crossroads...Do I bail out now before I invest any more class time into this potentially year-long project, or tough it out? I guess I wouldn't be rambling on and on if I had planned on giving up...but again, what do I do now?

My current thoughts are leading towards replying to each of the student’s comments and asking them to "re-tool" their thoughts and describe some activity they love to do. Hopefully then I can draw some connections between their comments and math literacy. I hesitate to do this until I get responses the students seem to "care" about. What do you think??? What would you do next???