From reading street signs and menus to checking the weather, and using a ruler, there are so many examples of how a student's math and literacy adventure continues beyond the classroom. That's why we're sharing another bonus episode—this time from our friends at Math Teacher Lounge, to show the connection between math and children's literature.
In this episode, Mathematizing Children's Literature authors Allison Hintz and Antony Smith join Math Teacher Lounge hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss what would happen if we were to approach children's literature, and life, through a math lens, and how we can apply those techniques to classroom teaching.
Show notes:
Quotes:
“We started asking ourselves what would happen if we considered any story a chance to engage as mathematical sensemakers.” —Allison Hintz
“We think of stories as mirrors or windows. We really want to be mindful of story selection, of whose stories are told and whose stories are heard.”—Allison Hintz
“Modeling what I, as a teacher, notice or wonder about helps set the expectation for what kind of response would be encouraged.” —Antony Smith
From reading street signs and menus to checking the weather, and using a ruler, there are so many examples of how a student's math and literacy adventure continues beyond the classroom. That's why we're sharing another bonus episode—this time from our friends at Math Teacher Lounge, to show the connection between math and children's literature.
In this episode, Mathematizing Children's Literature authors Allison Hintz and Antony Smith join Math Teacher Lounge hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss what would happen if we were to approach children's literature, and life, through a math lens, and how we can apply those techniques to classroom teaching.
Show notes:
Quotes:
“We started asking ourselves what would happen if we considered any story a chance to engage as mathematical sensemakers.” —Allison Hintz
“We think of stories as mirrors or windows. We really want to be mindful of story selection, of whose stories are told and whose stories are heard.”—Allison Hintz
“Modeling what I, as a teacher, notice or wonder about helps set the expectation for what kind of response would be encouraged.” —Antony Smith
So we started asking ourselves what would happen if we considered any story a chance to engage as mathematical sense-makers.
Susan Lambert:I'm Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science of Reading: The Podcast, from Amplify. Across our seven seasons, we've often talked about the benefits of integrating literacy instruction with other subject areas. As great as that sounds in theory, pulling that off in the classroom is hard. That's why I'm excited to share an episode from my colleagues at the Math Teacher Lounge podcast, all about integrating math and literacy. On this episode, hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer interview the authors of the book "Mathematizing Children's Literature: Sparking Connections, Joy, and Wonder through Read-alouds and Discussion." Together, they discuss what it looks like to approach children's literature through a math lens, and they share some techniques for facilitating classroom conversations. Please enjoy Bethany and Dan's conversation with authors Allison Hintz and Antony Smith , and I'll catch you on the other side.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Allison , Tony — welcome! Welcome to the Lounge.
Allison Hintz:Thank you. We're so grateful to be here with you.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:We're so excited to have you here. And I wanna say that my very first ... was it my first math conference? Maybe it was my first math conference. And I went to your session on Mathematizing Children's Literature, and I was just so fired up. I was so wowed by your ideas, your energy, and your passion for students' thinking. And I feel like as I read this book, I felt like I was hanging out with you.
Dan Meyer:Yeah. I would love to hear a bit about the genesis of this book for you folks. Like, I'm coming from a secondary educator lens. I've got small kids — that's also part of my interest here. But I love any book that seeks to ... any idea that seeks to merge what seems like two disparate worlds. It's often the case that we feel like, "Well, there's approaches for ELA and approaches for math, and they're kind of separate disciplines." And these poor elementary teachers have to learn all of them and be experts at all of them. And here you both come along and say, "Hey, what if they are the same kind of technique?" Can you just speak to how this came about?
Allison Hintz:Definitely. Tony, do you wanna take a try? Do you want me to start us off?
Antony Smith:I can start. We oftentimes present and talk together, and so we kind of switch back and forth. So that's just how we are . Probably about eight or nine years ago , A llison and I, our offices were next to each other on our small campus. W e're both professors. And we just happened to have a few children's books that we looked at together. And we were just thumbing through the pages. We really l iked children's literature. And we noticed that I would stop at certain points wondering about character motive or plot or sequence of events or language use. And Allison would stop at very different points in the book and notice number and concepts or something about mathematics. And that's when we started to wonder what would it be like if we were sharing a children's book with a group of children and we put our ideas together. Where would we stop? What would we talk about? What would we ask children about, in terms of their thinking and what they n oticed?
Allison Hintz:And so we started playing with these questions that we had, and started approaching stories with multiple lenses, to see what kinds of things would children notice, and what kinds of things might they say. And we were also on our own journey in trying to understand how to plan for and facilitate lively discussions and classrooms that surface really complex mathematics. And it felt like stories were a place where that might be a fruitful context for hearing children's thinking.
Antony Smith:Over time, we came to the realization that if we wanted to hear children's ideas, we had to stop bombarding them with questions. <Laugh> And at first it made it worse that we were asking t hem math and literacy questions at the same time. < L augh> A nd so we realized that what we needed to do was to back off and to ask children what they noticed and wondered.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:I kept feeling like I was given permission to be a beginner as I read this book. Like, I loved how you said — I believe it was you, Allison — when you were in the class, you had a couple index cards that you kept on your clipboard. And that as you walked around, you would be like, "Hey, if I don't know what to ask, I ask one of these questions." Just this idea that there is that loss of control, but that's also a way to create this culture where students' ideas are valued, and we are allowing students to really generate the questions. Which I thought was such an important idea to explore.
Allison Hintz:We started this work long ago, super-excited about math books, and we saw a lot of potential in them, and we still do. But the limitation we saw is that math books put forth a certain mathematics to be curious about. In some ways they tell you what mathematics to think about. So we started asking ourselves, "What would happen if we considered any story a chance to engage as mathematical sense-makers?" And we started playing with non-math-y books, and we got to a place where we could consider every story an opportunity to engage in mathematical thinking. And so we started noticing things over time. "Oh, these books tend to be really mathy." We call those text dependent; we'd have to pay attention to the mathematics to understand the story. Whereas this pile of stories, they're not overtly math-y. You could really enjoy this story and not pay attention to mathematics and have an amazing conversation. But what would happen if we thought about this story as mathematical sense-makers, and how might it deepen our understanding of the story? And then this other teetering pile of books, these are books where, you know, children didn't tend to engage as overtly as mathematicians in it, but there's opportunities in this story to go back to something — to a moment, to an illustration, to a comment — and think as mathematicians. And those were more about illustration, exploring. And so as we notice these different kinds of books, we really broaden what we thought about. And I think one of the things we really wanna think about in community through this book is what happens if we approach any story, every story, as mathematical sense-makers, because stories are alive in children's lives, in homes and communities and schools. And it's a broad opportunity that we wanna take up. And as I stay on this train for just a moment about book selection, before we move into that process ... Bethany, in a previous MTL, you talked about representation. And do you remember when you shared the image of hair-braiding?
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Yes. Vividly. Yes.
Allison Hintz:<laugh> Yeah. And can you say just what that meant to you? What that...?
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Yeah. Well it was from a conference, Sunil Singh had had used it, and was talking about the artistry and mathematics and beauty in hair-braiding. And particularly he was showing this particular image of this black woman with her hair braided, in profile, and looking at the angles and the symmetry. And I shared that I spent so many hours in the beauty shop with my aunties and my mom and my grandma, and continue to, to this day. That it struck me immediately as familiar. And it struck me immediately as, as seeing an image that was reflective of my lived reality, projected as valuable and worthwhile for consideration in the world of mathematics. Which is not what I felt as a student of mathematics, as a young adult or child. So it was this beautiful moment, for me, of the power of when we see images and we allow opportunities for re-envisioning what may be a common practice for that student. Or may be something that they see every day .
Allison Hintz:And in that, in that same way, that image that was put up, we wanna think really carefully about representation in the stories that we select. And when we think of stories as mirrors or windows, we really wanna be mindful in story selection of whose stories are told and whose stories are heard. And when you said that you would sit down to listen to a story, and you felt at ease, or that you saw an image and you saw yourself, that can be and should be something we really think carefully about when we select the stories that we select.
Dan Meyer:It's a wider path for representation of different kinds of people in literature. 'Cause people's stories seem so much more present and towards the surface of their lives, versus, say, the abstractions and numbers and shapes in mathematics. It feels like more of a struggle to find ways to show people, "Hey, you're here. This place belongs to you." So in all these reasons, I think it's really great. You folks are using literature, which has this history of humanities, literally humanities, as a vehicle for mathematics. That seems pretty special here.
Antony Smith:"Last Stop on Market Street." We talk about this children's book quite a bit. But in this story , CJ with Nana, his grandmother, are riding the bus to the last stop on M arket Street i n San Francisco. To go, as we will find out, to go and to help serve in a soup kitchen to help the community. And the teacher, Susan Hadreas, h ad the children record their ideas. She charted them in an open Notice an d W onder re ad. And one of the ideas that a young boy noticed was that CJ on the bus — a man with a guitar starts playing the gu itar o n the bus. And CJ closes his eyes. And it says, "CJ's chest grew full and he was lost in the sound and the sound gave him the feeling of magic." So this boy said, "I wonder, what do es t hat feel like, if you're feeling the magic? What's that?" And that was one of many ideas in t h e o pen Notice and Wonder. And Allison will talk about the math lens read. But first, Susan went back and read with th em. She had that idea. She circled it on the chart paper. An d a nother day that week, she said, "Let's go back and visit th is s tory we really liked. And remember, we wondered what feeling the magic was like. Let's go back through and let's keep track of all the feelings and emotions that CJ had across the journey to th e s oup kitchen in this book." And so they did another read of the story. They were very familiar with it, of course, but they noticed new things and they also, every few pages, stopped, and she helped chart all of the emotions that CJ experienced. From envy to excitement to sadness. There's a huge range in this book. And it was fascinating.
Allison Hintz:I think one of the things that the children noticed was that CJ's feelings were shaped by community. And that he was shaped by and helped shape his community. And so the ways that he felt across the story were impacted by the other characters that he comes across. The guitar man on the bus, the bus driver who can pull a coin out from behind someone's ear, the lady with the butterflies in the jar, Nana helping him to see the rainbow. And the students started being curious about that. How do we shape and how are we shaped by community? What communities are we a part of? This class is one community. I'm in many communities across my life. And they started to quantify the number of people in the story. So Mrs. Hadreas went back for Math Lens Read. And she said, "Let's just keep track of and pay attention to how many people are in CJ's life in this day, because I can hear you starting to think about quantity." This class at the same time at other areas of the day had been working on counting collections, how to keep track. So they got out their tools. Some people pulled out ten-frames; some people pulled out clipboards. They had a wide range of things they could use to help them keep track. They developed their own strategy: keep track however you want. She did a quicker read through it, flipping the pages, and then they get into these debates. <laugh> "We already counted that person! But they took their hat off and put it down to collect money!"
Antony Smith:"What about the dog ?"
Allison Hintz:"That's the same person!" Yeah . "Does a dog count in this community?" "Do animals count in our community?"
Antony Smith:I love it .
Allison Hintz:"Yes, they count!" And so we went through and quantified, and there was really this understanding, as you saw these people throughout the story, that communities can be of different sizes, but community has impact. And you have responsibility in your community to show up. And to lean in. And to know that bringing your full, authentic, vulnerable self, you shape people and they shape you. And what communities are people a part of? And it turned into this really interesting discussion about quantity and helped us think more about quantity and community. I think a really important moment for us and for that class was the transition from being people who almost DID mathematics to a story, like counted things on a page , count acorns on a page in an autumn book, to BEING mathematicians who thought WITHIN the story.
Antony Smith:And then , two idea investigations that came from that — not at the same time, of course, but w ith the same group of children — one was they identified an emotion of their own and wrote and drew about that. And also, w ho helped them address or get out of or a cknowledge that emotion. And then the other idea investigation was that all of the children drew, or kind of mapped out, a community that they were part of. Whether it was their neighborhood or their classroom or their soccer team or whatever it was. And so those investigations strengthened the connections of those concepts to the lives of those children.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Well, I actually wanted to ask you about idea investigations. 'Cause I feel like there was such an important invitation in your book. And the way I understood the idea investigation is you're really paying attention to what's coming up in your other reads, right? And then these are opportunities to extend the thinking. Or, like you said, to extend a particular aspect. What's your community? Can we map your community? Or, what's a particular emotion? And it was in such contrast to what I think I have probably done in my classroom more than once. Which was like, "Oh, we read this story about seals <laugh> , so now my story problem is gonna be about seals. Like, in the story, Jojo the Seal had five balls. So if Jojo still had five balls and two of them bounced away. ..." Or whatever. But that's not what an i dea investigation is, right?
Allison Hintz:Yeah. I think this is where we also had some stumbles, and can totally relate to what you're saying as previous classroom teachers as well. We have come to a place where we are pretty in favor of a super-open-ended idea investigation that takes up the things that have surfaced in the multiple reads and making sure it's a rich task with many, many ways children can engage with that. There's many, many, many right answers or ways to engage. Less is more there. So we moved way away from even a worksheet that might have an idea from it, to blank paper and math tools and places to get into some productive struggle around some of the complex things that were raised.
Antony Smith:A challenge with worksheets is that they put a frame around children's ideas. So either there are only three lines to write on, or there's only a small box to draw in. Whereas a blank page, it opens up the possibility. And so I was ... is it Ann Jonas who wrote "Splash!"? I don't have it in front of me. The book "Splash!", about animals that end up in and out of the pond, including a cat that was not happy about ending up in the pond. And an idea investigation after that for very young children was: with the list of the different creatures displayed at the front of the room, on blank paper, draw your own pond and decide how many of which, and each type of animal you want in your pond, and then write about it. Just on blank paper. So that allowed some children to draw like three giant goldfish. But other children drew 17 frogs and three cats. And it lets children follow—
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:It was theirs, right? It was theirs.
Antony Smith:Their idea <laugh> . And that comes partly from, I think as Allison mentioned, we both were classroom teachers before moving into academia. And I remember giving children worksheets, particularly math worksheets, where they weren't necessarily bad, but right at the bottom it says, "Explain your strategy." And it gives two lines, right? <Laughs> The only the only thing a seven-year-old can write there is , "I thought." Or, "I solved it." <Laugh> And that's not where we need to go.
Dan Meyer:Yeah. If I could just ask the indulgence of the primary crowd here? I'm trying to make sense of all this. And I just wanna offer my perspective, my summary statement, of what's going on here. I'm trying to ... I love how you both came here. ...
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:How you doing, Dan? How you doing?
Dan Meyer:I'm a loving this a lot. I came in here loving how you folks are broadening the work of primary education to kind of find commonalities between these sometimes seemingly disparate kinds of teaching, in ELA and math. Love that. I wanna say, what I think you folks are describing — with all these teachers you observed and your own work — is the work of attaching meaning to what students might not realize yet has meaning. Or they might think it only has one kind of meaning, but the teacher, with their knowledge, realizes that there are many more dimensions of meaning that can be attached to those thoughts. And I'm hearing that from you folks. When you describe what math is and the power of a teacher to name a thing as mathematical, like, "Oh, you didn't think math was that, but math is noticing, math is wondering, math is asking questions," for one. But also, this work you're describing of how, first the task has to invite lots of student thoughts, and then to say like, "Oh, I see that there's a similarity between these two." And to raise those up for a conversation. Or to ask a question, like, to extend one student's question a little bit more. But it's always ... I'm just hearing you folks attaching more meaning than the student might have originally thought. I appreciate the conversation. That's really interesting.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Well, and now that the book is out, I think it's gonna keep evolving. Now that it's gonna be in the hands of teachers and librarians and educators and caregivers. It's exciting to see kind of where it goes next. Which actually brings us to our MTL challenge. Dan Meyer, do you wanna share?
Dan Meyer:Math Teacher Lounge, we have a challenge for the folks who listen. And we'd love for them to hop into the Facebook group, Math Teacher Lounge, or hit us up on Twitter at @MTLShow. And just to kind of exercise beyond listening. Exercise the ideas you folks are talking about. Some kind of a challenge that can help us dive deeper into your ideas. So what would you folks suggest for our crowd, for our listeners?
Allison Hintz:I would love to invite people to playfully experiment. With a favorite story, with a story that's new to you. I would love to invite listeners to sit with a story, maybe on your own, and just ask yourself, as a mathematician, what do you notice and wonder in this story? Don't feel any pressure. Maybe sit with a child, or some children, and listen to what they notice and wonder. Really listen. Don't ask questions. But hear their questions, and place children at the center, and consider multiple reads. Consider continuing to pursue their questions. We have a planning template that might support people in kind of sketching out some ideas, if you're open to playing with that, too.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:And we will post—
Dan Meyer:That's awesome.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:—a link for that planning template in our Facebook group. So thank you so much for that resource, 'cause I think it'll definitely help. It could help you — like you said — it could help you kind of organize your thoughts or help you think about this work in a new way. So thank you for that resource, and thank you for the amazing resource that is "Mathematizing Children's Literature." I am so excited to continue to engage with you both, and with listeners as they dive into this book. If folks want to engage with you more, where can they find you? How can they reach you?
Allison Hintz:Well, we're on Twitter.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Great!
Dan Meyer:What's your home address? < Laughs>
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Folks. No, let me try that again. Because it does sounds like I'm like , "Where can they find you? 425-941...." <Laughs>
Antony Smith:At the bookstore! Well, we are both on Twitter. We have an Instagram account that is @MathematizeChildren'sLiterature.
Allison Hintz:We want to hear from people. We want to learn about stories that are important in your lives and what children say. And grow these ideas together.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:And credit to Dan. You told me you went and ordered a bunch of the books they have on the suggested-reading list.
Dan Meyer:Oh my gosh.
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:You read 'em to your son.
Dan Meyer:I got such a side-eye from my significant others around here, for what I dropped on Amazon in one night. All these books I didn't have. Some of them I did; we're not fully illiterate around here. We do love the written word at the Meyer household. But there were a bunch that I grabbed. I'm morseling them out, day by day .
Bethany Lockhart Johnson:Wait. At bedtime, I read my one-year-old "One Is a Snail. Ten Is a Crab." <Laughs> And lemme tell you, he had vigorous pointing and "Da? Da da da da." So hey , we're on the road <laugh> . Deeply grateful not only for your work and your beautiful book, and your work, but also for the invitation to dive into the world of children's literature in a way that many of us have not before. And it's fun! Thank you, Tony. And thank you, Allison, and thanks for hanging out in the Lounge.
Antony Smith:Thank you so much.
Allison Hintz:Thanks for having the Lounge.
Antony Smith:Dan and Bethany. It's been fun.
Allison Hintz:Thank you both.
Susan Lambert:I really hope you enjoyed listening to that episode of the Math Teacher Lounge podcast, hosted by my colleagues Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer. If you'd like more conversations about research and best practices when it comes to math instruction, please subscribe to Math Teacher Lounge, wherever you listen to this show. On their current season, Dan and Bethany are delving into the topic of math anxiety.
Speaker 1:It's not just the case that people who are bad at math are anxious about it. It's actually that the anxiety itself can cause you to do worse in math.
Speaker 2:It can, you know, not only affect their academic, ongoing outcomes, like math tests and math assignments, but it can also affect their relationship with their parents.
Speaker 3:One of the teachers that I worked with had done her student teaching with a teacher who had math anxiety, and who never taught math. And so she entered her teaching career never having taught math before or seen it taught.
Speaker 2:For a lot of kids. It becomes a normalized message. That if you fear math, that's OK. Join the club.
Speaker 1:If we can change your mindset, then we can really set you on a path with several more options available to you.
Susan Lambert:Find all that and more over on Math Teacher Lounge . If you have a friend or colleague interested in math, we'd also be grateful if you told them about the show. Next time on Science of Reading: The Podcast, we're going to dive into a critical topic: how the education system can better serve children with dyslexia.
Speaker 4:We need to change the dialogue, and say, "This is about what's right for all kids." And this isn't about just dyslexia. The byproduct of doing what's right for all children will be that we can find those of us with dyslexia, and we won't have to use a bloody IQ model to do it.
Susan Lambert:That's next time on Science of Reading: The Podcast. Thanks so much for listening.