Introduction

In this volume we have collected a group of writing projects suitable for use in a wide range of undergraduate mathematics courses, from a survey of mathematics to differential equations. The projects vary in their level of difficulty and in the mathematics that they require, but are similar in their mode of presentation and use of applications. Students see these problems as “real” in a way that textbook problems are not, even though many of the characters in the projects (e.g., dime-store detectives and CEOs) are obviously fictional. The stories that these characters tell are sometimes fanciful and sometimes grounded in standard scientific applications, but the mere existence of the story draws the students in and makes the problem relevant.

This volume is the combined effort of four instructors who have used writing projects in their own courses for six or more years. Our goal is to provide an easy-to-use, widely applicable set of course materials that instructors can adopt and adapt to their courses—as many others who have come upon the projects through contact with the authors or the authors' Web sites have already done. Toward that goal, we include not only an extensive set of class-tested projects, but also

1. • implementation notes which highlight student difficulties,

2. • information about project solutions, and

3. • advice for grading writing projects.

In the remainder of this chapter we discuss how we have successfully used and graded the projects. In Chapter 3 we include sample solution papers for two of the projects.