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Explore guides, research papers, policy briefs, and tools to aid decisions on standards and assessments.
Writing in Middle Grades Mathematics: Research Summary
This review of literature makes a case for incorporating writing in the mathematics classroom. With recent educational reforms and the call for students to be college and career ready, the authors present research on how the improvement of writing skills is related to students’ capacity to learn mathematics. The authors present research to support how “writing in mathematics promotes the learning of mathematical concepts at a conceptual level as well as builds proficiency with skills and procedures.” Given the strong connections between writing and learning, the researchers recommend that teachers incorporate mathematics writing tasks with explicit and detailed instruction to students about appropriate writing practices.
Although the Common Core State Standards in mathematics do not explicitly state that students need to write in mathematics classrooms, the Practice Standards call for students to reason abstractly and quantitatively (Practice Standard 2) and construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others (Practice Standard 3). The authors argue that “writing in mathematics provides opportunities for these standards to be realized,” and they present studies that show positive results in students increasing their mathematical learning, thinking, and knowledge when writing was incorporated into their math lessons. The authors also include research-based instructional practices in math and writing that were shown to be effective. This article is short and direct, and presents the research in an organized way. This would be a helpful resource for middle-school educators who wanted to learn more about incorporating writing in their math classrooms to increase student achievement.