Whatever nit-picking I’ve done, this has been a marvelous and useful experience for me, and there’s nothing creepy about that.

Frankly, I’m really surprised by the heat this idea has taken recently, not just from Tom but from other sources whose concerns are so ad hominem and pedantic they aren’t worth a link.

To clarify then. This is about:

a) linking up math & English, the qualitative and the quantitative, like it just isn’t, and

b) assigning a year-long project that isn’t some bullshit perfunctory portfolio but instead draws from dozens of skills, concepts and, most importantly, my students’ own lives.

This isn’t about:

a) anything else.

What I really like about the annual report thing (and I’m sorry I didn’t participate) is that it looks more like self-reflection than anything else. But doing it visually and quantitatively gives you another angle, aside from your memories and emotions. Combine those together and you’ve got the powerful style of personal communication that Felton first explored. By the way, the Google Zeitgeist report is another example of the power of these visual representations — not as persuasive evidence, but as a lens through which to observe and think about ourselves:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2007/

Who are the shareholders? Where are the laws that force your family to pursue profit over people despite any externalities foisted upon the rest of society? Who will fire you as “CFO” if you don’t pursue the maximization of profit and instead live a balanced and moderate lifestyle?

Though I see your notion to a degree, the analogy between family and corporation fails in several essential ways.

To continue with the analogy, I’m my own family’s co-chairman of the board and CFO. :)

As with just about everything, it’s a matter of having a wide-ranging toolkit, and using the best approach, or having multiple approaches ready to hand.

At times, persuasive writing/storytelling works. At other times, expository writing works best.

The “storytelling” element of teaching is a good comparison, but while, in a good story, the story itself can be part of the point, the overall effect of the story falls down if the ending is weak.

Perhaps the weakness of an expository approach in the math classroom is the difficulty of creating the context where the truth of the ending (ie, the point demonstrated) is not seen as something of inherent value. This is less a storytelling issue than it is an issue with creating the connections between math and everyday life. These connections exist, but they are often difficult to elucidate.

For more on storytelling, I always go to Twains “Jumping Frog” and Tim O’Brien’s _The Things They Carried_ —

O’Briens novel obviously covers a lot more ground than simply storytelling, but there are gems in their about the power of stories —

Cheers,

Bill

The goal here is compelling self-expression across multiple subjects, which I guess isn’t too far off the field from compelling manipulation. I’ll keep an eye on it.