Tyler
Rose
Professor
Little
MATH-160-002
21
March 2015
Mathematics in a Story
Blog submission number 3
Due Date: March 23, 2015 by 11:59 pm Eastern
Standard Time
Point value: (20 points)
Book:
Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table
Author:
Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Illustrator:
Eric-Shabazz Larkin
The
book I chose was “Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table”, written by Jacqueline
Briggs Martin and illustrated by Eric-Shabazz Larkin. The book discusses farmer Will Allen and how
he grew up on a farm that produced enough food for more than 30 people! They grew peas, greens, and lima beans. As he aged, Will did not like to work and
plow the land, so he moved to Belgium and played professional basketball. After shooting hoops, Will decided to move to
Milwaukie and bought 6 large plots of land in the city to grow food, like he
did back home. He did this in order to
put food on the table for him and his wife.
Unfortunately, he noticed that the soil in the city was not great so he
composted and was eventually able to put food on his table and other’s too.
The
mathematical concept of “area” is addressed in the book because farmer Will
Allen is given a certain area to grow his food (6 city lots). At this, Will is upset that he could not feed
the entire city on just the 6 lots, so he builds greenhouses on each to double his
food growth! This shows that only a
certain amount of goods can be produced on an area and in order to make
more. One can buy more lots or use the
greenhouses to double the growth! All in
all, the book does a nice job a demonstrating the limits of area in a “real
world” setting of farming. The book
further goes on to express that the more area one has the more food could be
produced. Finally, the pictures help
demonstrate the productiveness of area in farming. The more area, the more food production!
I
believe that literature is an effective way to teach/learn a mathematical
concept because it helps people conceptualize the idea discussed in another
form. In the book I studied, readers
could learn about area from the words on the page and pictures. Unfortunately, when one is learning math a
teacher is not drawing a “real world” example along with the theory’s discussion,
so the literature aids in the learning process.
I strongly feel that literature and math should be more integrated, especially
with children, because they could gain a better understanding of things that
they will learn in the future.
GOOD
ReplyDeleteGood job! I like your summary and explanation of why literature is important to teach math. Including the names of characters in your story is a good way to illustrate your summary.
ReplyDeleteThis is great Tyler! I like how you mention the effectiveness of color and illustrations for teaching math to young children, I think this is why books like this are so successful in explaining the concepts.
ReplyDeleteso true, sophia! =]
Deleteprofessor little
tyler,
ReplyDeletenice selection. i haven't heard of this story before! you did a nice job of explaining the plot of the story, and also your explanations of the mathematical concept in the book is done well. i definitely agree that literature enhances learning of mathematical topics and i wish i could incorporate it into my college classes more often as it is helpful for adults and children alike.
nice job.
professor little