Have students write daily summarizing what they did in math and reflecting on what those activities taught them. Emphasize the students are not to write about how they feel about math, but about how they thought through a problem, what patterns they noticed, how what they learned today connects to what they were working on yesterday, etc. At a set time each day, have students trade math journals. The readers are to highlight every math idea in each entry. This gives students practice at being focused readers; gives writers a chance to publish their work to someone other than a teacher, and gives you a quick way to check and see if your students are comprehending the material.

Secondly, have students keep their own math glossary in the back of their math journal. Here, every time a new term is introduced, the student is responsible for writing down an accurate but student friendly definition of that term in his/her personal glossary. Students may refer to their personal glossaries whenever you see fit.