“Write Like Nobody’s Watching”

I was at TMC18 this past week, and was honored to be able to give a presentation on Writing in the Math Class. I loved the discussion and interaction with the people who came to my session, but I quickly realized I didn’t do a very good job talking about the “how”s. Several people asked if I would write up some “Pro-Tips.”

Then, Chris Luzniak (@cluzniak) threw out the dare-of-all-dares: “Why don’t you blog about it?”

My instinctual reaction about blogging, which I have listened to for the past several years, was to blow it off.

I got thinking about the “Pro-Tips”, the “hows”, the “ideas”, the “prompts”, the “rubrics”, all the things I wanted to share with those in my session. I then got thinking how it would be great to have a central place to store all these ideas – and encourage others to share their ideas with me … and then it hit me … I was thinking about a blog.

Naturally, I was flooded with all sorts of insecurities and middle-school-level anxieties.

In researching blogging – to find reasons to convince myself NOT to blog – I found a blog written by Kate Nowak (@k8nowak) and Sam Shah (@samjshah2). And I came across this line written by Sam, “Write like nobody’s watching.”

“Write like nobody’s watching.” I can’t explain why that phrase did it. Maybe it was because I could imagine Sam saying it, his hand gestures, the excitement in his voice. Or maybe it was just time. If you feel inclined, please join.

Let’s go –