Mower, Pat (2003)
Algebra Out Loud: Learning Mathematics Through Reading and Writing Activities.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Since algebra is the gate for courses beyond it, strategies to assist students in learning algebraic concepts and skills are always welcomed. Algebra Out Loud provides such strategies while building skills that can be used in other courses in mathematics. True to her goal to have students read and comprehend information from the algebra textbook to increase their understanding, Mower combines familiar reading and writing strategies with strategies she developed and used in her classes to motivate students to read the text. Through these strategies and activities she provides teachers with an avenue to engage their students in accomplishing a feat that many students have avoided.
Each of the eight chapters of the book is filled with activities and strategies that can be used by teachers to address the concepts and skills to be covered in a high school or college algebra course. Each activity is introduced with three questions: What? Why? and How?. “What” gives a description of the activity; “Why” gives the objectives to be addressed; and “How” tells the activities to be used and how they will accomplish the objectives. The activities lead students to examine and read the text for a specific purpose. The novice teacher should have no problem using the examples Mower provides, while the innovative/professional teacher can go beyond the examples, by using them and the templates given to address other topics and/or add new twists to the activities.
Opening the book to the Review/Preview Process chapter of the reading section, the first chapter in the book, one is struck by how similar the first activity is to ones found in most other books on reading. It asks students to preview the chapter or section of a text to glean information and record it. But as one delves deeper into this chapter the activities change to give students a chance to recall and record their knowledge about topics, vocabulary, and concepts. There is an acknowledgement of the information students already possess and how their information compares to that of the textbook. Most of the activities throughout the reading and writing sections are designed as described above. Thus, the activities are constructed to give students a sense of ownership of the information to be learned and to pique the students’ interest by actively involving them in the text material.
Algebra Out Loud consists of a reading and a writing section each containing four chapters. The reading section begins with activities on pre-reading and ends with a chapter entitled “Readings in Algebra.” Some of the activities found in this section include K-W-L (already Known- Want to learn - Learned), Concept Circles, Semantic Word Maps, Graphic Organizers, Knowledge Ratings, and Semantic Feature Analysis. Many of these may be familiar to readers but Mower does a masterful job of using them with math topics.
One reading activity that I found intriguing is “Group Speak” found in the post reading chapter of this section. It engages the entire class to reflect on the topics/concepts in a chapter or section of a text that has already been studied. Students as a class verbally give information about the topic studied. Thus in a brainstorming fashion students contribute to a discussion of the ideas/concepts/skills found in the chapter or section being discussed. This activity and most of the other activities in Algebra Out Loud require or can require students to discuss ideas/concepts found in the text. It wasn’t until I noticed this characteristic of the activities that the title of the book made sense to me.
In the writing section the four chapters are “Writing to Learn Algebra,” “Writing to Communicate Algebra,” “Writing as Authentic Assessment,” and “Writing for Assessment.” In this section, also, the activities are designed to engage students. Even their titles can catch the attention of students-“In Your Own Words,” “Math Ads,” “Math Story Activity,” “Creating a Math Mnemonic,” “Math Journals,” and “Mathematical Investigator.” All provide the students with the opportunity to reflect on the concepts/skills being studied. Two activities target technology “E-Writing” and “Math Essays: Using a Graphing Calculator in Algebra.”
Given the encouragement to include technology in the classroom and how much of a motivation technology is for students, the small amount of technology interwoven into Algebra Out Loud is the greatest weakness that I see. But for the innovative, technology savvy teacher including technology in the activities should not pose a problem.
Pat Mower has very successfully pulled together many old and new ideas to address reading and writing in mathematics. Algebra Out Loud provides the teacher with techniques that can be used to increase students’ understanding of algebra concepts and to improve their facility with the skills they must use to succeed in an algebra course. All of these techniques are embedded in activities that encourage and assist students in reading algebra texts and in writing about algebra.
With the prominent role that Algebra plays in most state’s graduation requirements, in high stakes tests, in college entrance exams, and in the ability of students to succeed in other mathematics courses, Pat Mower’s Algebra Out Loud is a welcome resource to teachers who are looking for ideas to improve their student success rate in algebra. It can provide teachers with many new ideas and the impetus to develop or seek new techniques to assist students to successfully complete the algebra course.
Reviewed by Merle T. Harris, a mathematics professional development trainer with the Southern Initiative of the Algebra Project. I am currently providing mathematics professional development services to 5-8th grade teachers in Yuma Elementary School District in Yuma, Arizona and 5-7th grade teachers in the Lodi Unified School District in Lodi, California. My interest is teacher development and teacher change, especially as it relates to mathematics.
