The most typical texts of my discipline are textbooks. There are many mathematical trade books out there, but for the most part it doesn’t seem like books would be interesting if they were about math things, so those books don’t get read as often as they should. This comes I’m sure, from math textbooks being the only mathematical books people are exposed to. I sadly was until within the last couple years one of those who doubted the possibility of interesting math books.

My first experience really ever reading a math book came in Calculus 3 when I needed extra explanations, and realized that I could actually read my textbook. This was a “light-bulb moment” for me, because I’d never even attempted to read a math book before. When I took Algebraic Structures, my math book even had voice and a little bit of humor in it! Discovering the humor and voice in that textbook was probably the most pleasurable moment of reading in math. I still haven’t read any mathematical trade books yet, but am currently in possession of one that I am about to start (Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea).

My most unpleasant moment in trying to read math books was probably when attempting to read the book for my Linear Algebra and Differential Equations book. I did not find that book at all friendly and quickly gave up trying to read it as a way to get additional help. I did not really always understand it, and it was really really dry. I can read most anything if it is written in such a way that I can feel a person is expressing opinions, but books that have absolutely no voice, and seem as though they could have been written by a very boring robot I have a hard time with.

My best idea thus far for encouraging reading in my discipline is to maybe take a little bit of time to read to my class a little bit from a math trade book that I find engaging, to show them that they really can be interesting. I am thinking that I may want to require my students to read one math trade book during the semester. If I do this, very early on I would want to read to them a bit, so they can see that what I am asking is really not such a terrible thing, but may actually be quite enjoyable.

In my own math classes, the way I was generally encouraged to express my understanding was just by solving math problems. As a teacher, I am thinking that while being able to solve the problems is important, I can encourage my students both in writing and comprehension if I have them routinely writing about the meaning of the problems they are being asked to solve, and about problems they may discover. This will help them both in improving their literacy as well as helping them reach a much deeper learning level in terms of the math. Likewise with assessments, if I have them writing and explaining with their assignments, I can incorporate this writing and explaining into their tests. In addition to their own learning being greater with this, it will allow me, as their teacher, to better see their thought process, to see what they really grasp and what they do not comprehend. One thought I have been having about testing is that it might be interesting to give them the solution to a couple of the problems and have them just explain to me how to get that answer.I definitely want my students to learn that math is about so much more than plugging away, mindlessly, at algorithms, coming up with answers that they do not understand.