Characteristics of Second Graders' Mathematical Writing

Abstract

This study compared the characteristics of second graders' mathematical writing between an intervention and comparison group. Two six-week Project M2 units were implemented with students in the intervention group. The units position students to communicate in ways similar to mathematicians, including engaging in verbal discourse where they themselves make sense of the mathematics through discussion and debate, writing about their reasoning on an ongoing basis, and utilizing mathematical vocabulary while communicating in any medium. Students in the comparison group learned from the regular school curriculum. Students in both the intervention and comparison groups conveyed high and low levels of content knowledge as indicated in archived data from an open-response end-of-the-year assessment. A multivariate analysis of variance indicated several differences favoring the intervention group. Both the high-and low-level intervention subgroups outperformed the comparison group in their ability to (a) provide reasoning, (b) attempt to use formal mathematical vocabulary, and (c) correctly use formal mathematical vocabulary in their writing.The low-level intervention subgroup also outperformed the respective comparison subgroup in their use of (a) complete sentences and (b) linking words. There were no differences between groups in their attempt at writing and attempts at and usage of informal mathematical vocabulary.

The development of instructional guidelines for elementary mathematical writing

“…Writing makes thinking visible to oneself, peers, and teachers (Emig, ). Studies have demonstrated that mathematical writing can increase students’ use of content vocabulary (Cohen, Casa, Miller, & Firmender, ) and encourage new ways of thinking about mathematics (Liedtke & Sales, ). This article defined writing in mathematics class as writing to reason and communicate mathematically.…”

Piloting a Mathematics‐Writing Intervention with Late Elementary Students At‐Risk for Learning Difficulties

“…In sum, prior research in the elementary grades about MW assessments utilized different methods for scoring MW: rubric scoring (Kostos & Shin, ), awarding points for features of writing or mathematics (Cohen et al., ; Powell & Hebert, ), or scoring by category (Evens & Houssart, ). Each of these scoring methods shared similarities with scoring of general writing samples (Koutsoftas & Gray, ; Olinghouse & Wilson, ).…”

“…Unfortunately, we are aware of no data from high‐stakes assessments that is currently available about the MW scores of students in the late elementary grades. The more informal efforts to understand how students write about mathematics (e.g., Cohen et al., ; Hebert & Powell, ; Kostos & Shin, ) provide detail about how students write within mathematics, and it is clear that many students struggle with MW. To improve MW knowledge, researchers have conducted several investigations.…”

“…Similarly, at second grade, Cohen et al. () carried out a 12‐week study in which second‐grade students participated in geometry and measurement lessons incorporating MW activities ( n = 193), or acted as a comparison condition (i.e., no MW experiences; n = 191). Students participated in MW approximately every three days by responding to prompts encouraging students to “think deeply.” Students’ MW involved independently writing explanations to fictional characters.…”

“…Cohen et al. () did not provide explicit modeling from the teacher, but engaged students in periodic discussions with exemplar and nonexemplar examples of MW. Students then participated in independent MW.…”