Intent and enactment: Writing in mathematics for conceptual understanding

Using a national sample of students’ writing from the National Study of Writing Instruction, this study examines the current state of writing in the mathematics classroom and the extent to which enactments align with the intentions established in the research base and curricula articulated by NCTM and the CCSS–M. Over 3,000 writing assignments from 138 students in grades, 6, 8, 10, and 12 were analyzed for functions of writing and epistemic...