Nathalie Aissi Post

1. The book, The Wiener Dog Magnet, written and illustrated by Hayes Roberts, is about a little monkey named Kiki Marie.  She was an obedient monkey because she would clean her room sixteen times and did what she was told. One day after cleaning, she decided to treat herself to buy a magnet at the magnet store with her allowance. With so many magnet choices to choose from, she finally decided to buy the wiener dog magnet.  Happy with her choice, Kiki Marie took that magnet to all her favorite places. For example, a place with many hills. But when she was on her way to the river, something happened; 2 real live wiener dogs got stuck to her magnet.  When she continued to walk on, 4 more real life wiener dogs began to attach to her magnet.  When putting her magnet down and taking a break because it was getting so heavy with all these dogs, she heard a noise in the river of 2 alligators, who were trapped in rapids! Wanting to rescue them, Kiki Marie made the wiener dogs attach to one another and get in a line to extend to the alligators for them get out of the river. The magnetism of the dogs formed a bridge for the alligators to get by. Long story short, Kiki Marie saved the alligators lives, received a blue ribbon and continued her happy life with her wiener dogs.
2.  One mathematical concept that was represented in this story was transformations. In particular for this story, a horizontal stretch took place in the story. When Kiki Marie wanted to rescue the alligators, she made the dogs attach to one another, creating a longer and longer line of wiener dogs, developing a horizontal stretch by creating the bridge to help rescue the alligators. Another mathematical concept presented in this story was  a visual image of concavity. The hills that Kiki Marie walked on were concave down, increasing and concave down, decreasing.  Also, the shape of the hills were a quadratic, which would have an equation of f(x)=x^2. But since they are hills, it would be an upside down quadratic, also known as a negative quadratic, having the equation of f(x)= -x^2.
3. I feel as though literature is an effective way to learn a mathematical concept because it has visuals. In particular, picture books do. At times, there are students who learn better when seeing pictures of possible everyday visuals. This can help a student grasp a concept a lot faster and not only that, but it will allow a student to compare a mathematical concept to a real life setting, which is what math is supposed to be used for. But books without pictures can also be effective because an mathematical concept explained in a real life manner thoroughly can also cause students to compare, relate and have a quicker and easier understanding of a mathematical concept.