Reference Information:

Baxter, J., Woodward, J., & Olson, D. (2005). Writing In Mathematics: An Alternative Form Of
Communication For Academically Low-Achieving Students. Learning Disabilities Research and
Practice, 20(2), 119-135.
Authors Abstract:
Classroom communication figures prominently in current math reform efforts. In this study, we
analyze how one teacher used writing to support communication in a seventh-grade, low-track
mathematics class. For one school year, we studied four low-achieving students in the class. Students
wrote in journals on a weekly basis. Using classroom observations and interviews with the teacher,
we developed profiles of the four students, capturing their participation in class discussions. The
profiles highlighted an important similarity among the four students: marginal participation in both
small-group and whole-class discussions. However, our analysis of the students' journals identified
multiple instances where the students were able to explain their mathematical reasoning, revealing
their conceptual understanding, ability to explain, and skill at representing a problem. In this respect,
journals potentially facilitate another important form of classroom communication. The promise of
writing is that it offers an alternative to the visions of classroom communication that are strictly oral
in nature.
Questions:
The study was done to examine what writing reveals about how low-achieving students in
mathematical proficiency.
1. What does writing reveal about the students conceptual understanding?
2. What does writing reveal about the students strategic competence?
3. What does writing reveal about the students adaptive reasoning?
Participants:
Four target students were studied in a 28 student classroom. All four of the students were special
education students who scored in the lowest third of the class on the mathematics subtest of the
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. Two of the target students had IEP goals for math, one being two
years below grade level in math and one 2 years below grade level in general. A third student had had
IEP goals in math until the year of the study, when she was labeled only one year below grade level.
The fourth student had IEP goals for reading and writing. These students were exemplars of the
types of students often found in remedial middle school math classes. The teacher of the classroom,
Ms. Carter had taught middle school english and mathematics for 15 years.
Methodology:
Ms. Carter used writing in her classroom at least once a week, having students write in Journals. The
first few months of the year the students were asked to answer prompts about their feelings (e.g. do
you think calculators should be used in math class?), in October the prompts shifted to writing about
mathematical thinking (e.g. why is 0.3 greater than 0.003?), by January the prompts had shifted again
to asking students to justify explanations for their work and began to address topics being covered in
class. The researchers observed Ms. Carters classroom 2-3 times per week for the entire school year
and took extensive field notes to develop profiles for each of the four target students, focusing on
how they functioned in the classroom. They also interviewed the teacher both informally before and
after classroom observations and more structured 1-hour interviews before and after the study.
Researchers focused mostly on the students journals and the level of thinking contained in them.
They were very concerned with students shifting from the initial phase of recording (copying notes),

and summarizing (describing concrete experiences in their own words without connections) to the
intermediate phase of generalizing (identifying generalizations and patterns) and relating (noting
relationships between generalizations, posing questions, and making connections).

Findings:
Two lesson styles were presented to represent the changes in Ms. Carters classroom over the
year. In the first lesson style she asked her students to respond to an opinion question such as,
Should kids be allowed to use calculators? she had her students record their opinions in
journals and continued this process for three minutes everyday. Her second lesson style involved
offering prompts that focused on mathematical concepts and processes. Throughout the year she
constantly encouraged students to participate in class as well as providing students with out of
class math help. Each of the four students that were studied had a problem focusing in class.
They all had a problem with turning in homework assignments and all had a difficult time
participating in class. These students often felt frustrated when they were unable to answer
questions in class. They all struggled in mathematics working at a level two grades below where
they should be. Each student used their math journals to record their responses to the daily
question. The analysis of the students journals resulted in a variety of student effort. Three of the
students studied tried to explain their mathematical reasoning and feelings in their journals often
summarizing the work they did. One student, who performed mathematics at the lowest level,
expressed nothing in his journal besides I dont know. The work of these four students was
compared to a comparison group of students who all performed in the highest level in the class.
The analysis of the two groups work revealed different patterns between the focus group and the
comparison group. Both wrote a similar number of affective responses, but, the focus group
wrote I dont know six times more than the comparison students. The comparison group also
used mathematical ideas to develop a solution in their journal entries while the focus group did
not.
Discussion:
The results from this study suggest that students who do not actively participate within their
math classrooms do not respond when asked to write about mathematical ideas. The results also
raise concern for low-achieving mathematics students. The focus group students lacked deep
understanding within their journal entries, however, it was clear that writing in their journals
served as switch in which students who did not participate in class had to stop being a passive
listener and attain a more active role. The relationship between writing and mathematics is still
unclear, but it is clear that writing promotes an active student environment. Writing offers a mean
for students who typically fear math to relate it to their own lives. The teacher in this study found
the writing journals as a key for assessment and found it was much easier knowing who was
unclear on specific topics through their explanations within their journals.