Writing and Reading Multiplicity in the Uni-Verse
Nenad Radakovic, Susan Jagger, and Limin Jao
SUMMARY: This article explores the interdisciplinary connection between mathematics and poetry, focusing on how creative writing can help students engage with complex numerical concepts. By analyzing Nanao Sakaki’s poem "A Love Letter," the authors demonstrate how concentric structures and geometric scales can be used to represent the universe. The text highlights a classroom experiment where students wrote their own poems to explore spatial relationships while making their poems personal. Blending emotional experiences with mathematical themes. While some students struggled with numerical accuracy, the authors argue that the process allows for a multiplicity of meanings and a more embodied understanding of abstract ideas. Ultimately, the research suggests that integrating the arts into STEM education fosters a dynamic environment for collective knowing and deeper conceptual exploration.
Adding a personal thought: All throughout my bachelors and now my masters, I've always had a big interest in relational pedagogy, when math has meaning, students will learn more. When students can feel a connection to math, or a sense of ownership to their work, students will learn more. This article highlights all of these points.
STOP #1: Nenad's Poetic Response "My Universe"
I really loved this poem and how it represented each scale factor. This was a beautiful way to open this article and the explanation of the task at hand. The original poem that this was a response to "A Love Letter" by Nanao Sakaki (1996) was also lovely, but I struggled to understand some stanzas and had to google some words. This one by Radakovic was more simple and easy to understand.
STOP #2: "We interpreted that the “love” mentioned in the title relates to Sakaki speaking to a person (“you”) and that this person is central in his poetic universe: it begins with this person and ending with the circle that encompasses her or him." (Rodakovic et al., 2018, p. 3)
I really enjoyed this sentence as I believe that it summerizes many types of poetry very well. Often, and even in this weeks activities, poetry is about "me" and what surrounds me, whether its legit, or metaphorically. This idea of poetry is perfect when talking about using it as a tool for understanding math, as students are at the center of their own understanding and learning.
STOP #3: "[...], we challenged the formalist approach to poetry that assumed that all readers decode textual structures in the same and ideal way thus rendering interpretation a predictable process with a singular outcome (Guerin, Labor, Morgan, Reesman, & Willingham 2005)." (Rodakovic et al., 2018, p. 3)
"[...] the reader is not to be ignored in the process of interpretation. Rather, the reader takes on the role of authorship in producing the text in her very reading of it. [...] A reader is required to bring meaning to those empty signifiers. Barthes proposed that the reading and subsequent interpretation of any text is a writing of a new text. [...]. There are as many texts as there are readers." (Rodakovic et al., 2018, p. 4)
This really stuck out to me after this week activity. When I was reading the Bridges poems, I reflected on my interpretation of the poems, and even commented that perhaps that is not what the author was intending, but that's what I got out of it, I mentioned how some of this diminishes when the author themselves reads their own poems aloud.
QUESTION: After this weeks activities and readings and the connection of Fibonacci to my project, I believe that I would love to try Fib Poems with my classes (hopefully time permits to do this before the end of our project). Would you try to incorporate poetry into your teaching, if so, what kind of poems would you use from this weeks activities/readings and why?
Oh - thanks for sharing Nenad’s My Universe poem! I really like this one too. As you mention it is a great example of scaling, and relating ourselves within the world/universe. It reminds me of our 550 course with Cynthia, where Dr. Archibald talked about Indigenous storywork, the idea of hands forward, hands back, and also the viewpoint of connecting to the world through our spheres of influence. The first sphere is ourselves, the second sphere is family, then community, nation, society, etc. This poem offers many entrances to interesting conversations!
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of using Fib poems as exit tickets! A beautiful way to encourage reflection. This week, I too struggled with the idea that reflects in this quote you grabbed: “the reader is not to be ignored in the process of interpretation. Rather, the reader takes on the role of authorship in producing the text in her very reading of it.” I liked knowing/seeing the mathematical structure of the poem and thought those that made it explicit may be the easiest to start with in the classroom, in terms of linking to math concepts and having students emulate. But, I wonder if that limits the creativity and the opportunity for students to analyze for themselves?
Like Fib poems that have an approachable structure to play within, I would like to try modular poems that can be read additively like Parallel Universe by Lisa Lajeunesse https://www2.math.uconn.edu/~glaz/Mathematical_Poetry_at_Bridges/Bridges_2026/LisaLajeunesse_ParallelUniverse.pdf and binary tree poems like Decision Tree by Mike Naylor https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBMMY3UMNbPlUz-2WS7AwvtmOiLTsRecY. It may be thoughtful just to soft-start classes with random selections of mathematical poetry offering the questions: What does this poem say to you? Can you find the math in this poem? I remember doing a open mic session with a gr 7 practicum class for their poetry unit and that was fun! We brought in snacks and drinks (like a coffee shop), dimmed the lights, and took turns sharing and snap-clapping. It may also be cool to have students set up their poetry for a gallery walk and provide an artist statement that explains the meaning and mathematical aspects they portrayed.
Taylor, Nenad’s scale poem is very effective – it would be neat to do this in Earth Science, instead of just mathematics class!
ReplyDeleteThis week I was confused in my readings when JoAnne Growney talked about her friends and their most enjoyable experiences was having listened to the author read their poems out loud. I am not yet at that level where this excites me in the slightest, but even so, I understand the idea that most interpretations of the poem would be stripped away if I heard the poet emphasize certain words/ideas over others.
This week I learned of some very accessible poetic forms from JoAnne Growney. They are square poems. I imagine you can create a square as large or as small as you want. Each syllable counts as one, and each line as one. So an 8x8 square poem has 8 syllables for 8 lines. The syllable count actually helps to express your ideas because it limits the choices you have to say what you want – reducing from infinity is more manageable. What I’m finding, is that the smaller 3x3 and 4x4’s are more challenging to get complex ideas out and makes things harder.