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Essay on Using Writing to Teach Math/Writing across the Curriculum
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is a pedagogical movement that began in the 80s as a response to a perceived deficiency in literacy among college students. WAC is premised on theories that maintain that writing is a valuable learning tool that can help students synthesize, analyze, and apply course content.
This particular approach to WAC frequently makes use of journals, logs, micro themes, and other, primarily informal, writing assignments. If they write reactions in their own words to information received in class or from reading, students often comprehend and retain information better. Also, because students write more frequently, they either maintain or improve their writing skills and avoid a decrease in writing ability from entrance to senior year.
Writing for a math class strikes many students and teachers too, as an odd idea to say the least (Olson, 1992). However, an increasing number of educators have recognized the importance of written composition, especially in lower division and survey courses, for helping students to master and express mathematical ideas. When a math class consists, as it too often does, of nothing more than a collection of techniques to be learnt by rote and regurgitated on exams, then certainly writing about those techniques is superfluous. But when a mathematics course, as it ought, becomes a journey of discovery – of mathematical ideas and the importance of those ideas in our appreciation of the world – then writing about mathematics can become a powerful component of the learning process.
An increasing number of educators have begun to incorporate a modest amount of composition into their syllabi, with surprising results. The reason for their success is not difficult to understand. Most instructors will readily admit that they “never truly understood” the basic mathematical ideas that constitute algebra, trigonometry, and calculus until they had to teach those ideas to others............
