On writing about math

Today was a teacher in-service day for the upper school (grades 9-12). It was really great to see everyone together again. I felt at home. The agenda was full of discussions about various topics, the details of which I won't bore you with writing here

One of the highlights of the day was a long discussion about the content and format of research papers. Yeah, I know. THAT was a highlight?! Yes.

You see, I'd really like to add regular writing assignments to my curriculum this year. Perhaps in all my classes. I think it's really important to be able to write about mathematics. I want to get kids to see that math is just another way of communicating. It's another language. Short research papers might be just the ticket.

I'd also like to find ways to use blogs, but I'm not sure how. One idea would be to have students blog about their "distilled thought" for a period of time. They could use their notes. The idea would be to either summarize a body of work in the class, or pick a highlight and expand on it, or pick something related and expand on it. The mechanics of using the internet for this would make it cumbersome to enter equations in mathematical notation -- a bit of a problem at first glance. But this could perhaps be a benefit, too. It frees the students from having to worry about those nasty equations, and it forces them to think "in English".