Writing in Mathematics

Writing is just as important a component of reading when it comes to literacy. I've noticed throughout this semester with my own assignments that writing can be an important part of math class. Getting them started with writing assignments earlier will be beneficial to the students in their math class and to their overall literacy. While a math journal was already mentioned in a blog, I've thought about other assignments that could require writing. In our cohort's math classes this semester, we've been required to do a lot of writing assignments. Since we are in a teaching program, our homework is designed to have us thinking about how we would explain these concepts to students. There is a great advantage to being able to explain something in order to better understand it. An interesting article about this idea is found here: https://www.livescience.com/34000-explaining-helps-understand.html . I would like to have students in my class explain the steps, in writing, for certain problems for homework. One website I found about writing in math is here: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/four-tips-writing-math-classroom-heather-wolpert-gawron . This would be incredibly different from anything I ever did in middle school math classes but have been expected to do a lot of in college. This could be very informal and I would just have them write about problems the way they would tell the student next to them having trouble. Kids can usually speak and explain well, so all they would need to do is put their ideas onto paper.