Activity: Words per line Fib poems about golfing.
Autumn:
Red
Orange
Leaves fall
Crisp air aroma
Hunt for balls amongst leaves
Early morning frost coats the soon dormant grass
Spring:
Brown
Gray
Leafless trees
Lingering snow melt
Balls plunge into saturated fairways
Feet and clubs become covered in wet soil
Article: Can Zombies write mathematical poetry? Mathematical poetry as a model for humanistic mathematics. Karaali (2014). This article describes Gizem Karaali’s journey to teaching a course called “Can Zombies do Math?” and writing his first piece of mathematical poetry.
In his early years Gizem wrote non-mathematical poetry in his native language, Turkish. However, he learned mathematics in English. He reflected, at this time “my mathematics and my poetry did not play together. They spoke different languages” (p. 40)
Early in his career, after browsing works from the Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal (HMNJ), Gizem began to see how math, intrinsic to himself, could be explored and viewed in a humanistic fashion. This referred to either or both, teaching mathematics humanistically (as if students matter) and mathematics is a humanistic discipline (as if math is a human endeavor). He argued math shared three ingredients with what makes us human, cognition, consciousness and creativity. Inspired by HMNJ he and colleagues launched a new journal, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (JHM). The goal of the publication was to “provide an open forum for both academic and informal discussions on all the various threads of mathematical inquiry.” (p. 42)
From there came an invitation to participate in a creative writing workshop. This forced Gizem to ponder blending together his creative writing and love of mathematics for the first time in his life. In particular, it sparked a love for poetry which, he argued, shared the same three ingredients of what makes us human. A few years later, he taught a course, Can Zombies do Math? Students engaged with poetry that dealt with personal experiences and feelings with mathematics.
For example:
(p.43)
Here is Gizem’s first piece of mathematical poetry, oddly enough he wrote it after teaching the course in mathematical poetry.
(p. 44)
In the Bridges Math Art video, Mike Naylor, spoke in zeros and ones, as if it were a poem. Indeed it rhythmically sounded like a poem as he stated. To me this showed how poems can be structured mathematically, just like the Fib poems (1, 2, 3, 5, 8 words or syllables). In such cases the poem did not need to be about a mathematical theme. Whereas, Gizem’s humanistic mathematical poetry did not need a mathematical structure but rather it needed a mathematical theme (personal experiences and emotions surrounding mathematics).
My questions this week are also my “stops”. Before reading and viewing the materials, what were your thoughts about math and poetry, … poetry that was mathematical structured …. poetry that was mathematical themed?
What might poetry look like if it were both mathematically structured and themed? Maybe a poem like Gizem’s that is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 words?
Math
Dread
Soul sucking
Numbers cause numbness
Mind feels dumb and lost
Marks, grades, and report cards are the proof
I do like the idea of having students write Fib poems about math. It could take a lot of different directions, it could express feelings toward math, or even a concept they learned in math. Having a strict structure really may make it seem less intimidating to write poetry. The short nature of them also forces you to be succinct in your thoughts, this could also be very good for students to think carefully about concepts. Imagine if you wanted to express something about surface area in a Fib poem, not only would you have to think about what you knew about it but also how to use such few words to express something about it.
ReplyDeleteUsing poetry to express ideas of how they feel about math could also be helpful for students. It certainly could be a good starting point for discussion for students who have anxiety about math.
I also really appreciated poetry as an entryway to math, especially for students who experience math anxiety! I feel like the less expected the connection between another subject and math, the more intriguing it is to those who are less mathematically inclined. Your poem definitely resonated with me, as someone who suffered in elementary and high school math. However, poetry might just be a way to bring some beauty and peace back into what many students (even my extremely young ones!) consider to be a source of great stress. It's amazing how much pressure is exerted by my students' primarily Asian parents at such a young age; I never expected to see six year olds clearly expressing math anxiety. I really appreciate these approaches as another way to ease their fears.
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