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Patrick Ramminger

Dr. Prince

EDU 412

19 February 2023

Text Analysis

Introduction

For this area of the Precalc textbook, I will be analyzing section 2.1 of radical functions

and transformations. With this being a math text book, there are a good number of key ideas and

key concepts to look at. Starting with the first one, there is graphing radical functions using

tables of values. They define radical functions as "a function that involves a radical with a

variable in the radicand"( McAskill Pg, 63). Following the definition, the text then goes into

graphing radical functions using transformations. We also see how to determine a radical

function from a graph in this section, followed by the way to model the spend of sound. Lastly,

at the end of the section, it goes into the key ideas. This is all shown in a Purple-colored box at

the top of page 72. Other important texts are also in this section. On page 62 there is a web link

that will lead you to more information about Galileo or the mission of Apollo 15. The structure

and the tone of the text are bland. The reason for this is that it's a math textbook, which means

that math textbooks throw numbers and formulas left and right to you. This can lead the textbook

to be very bland and people not enjoy the book. In other textbooks, we can get interesting stories

and get more into the book. However, math textbooks don't give you a story to pull you in. The

organization of the text is free-flowing. The text goes from one example to the next example.

Moving on throughout the same organization you get an understanding of the area. Then you
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move on to the example you have to do yourself. Lastly, you then get the answer to that problem

to see how you did. It then keeps going over and over telling the practice problems for the

students to do. In my opinion, the text of the book is underwhelming due to the fact that there’s

nothing in my eyes to keep me latched on and not getting bored.

Analysis

Within the text, there are strengths that I see myself liking. The number one thing is that

there is a lot of visual aid in it. There are pictures with pretty much every single problem that’s

provided. Some examples go with each example that helps the student understand what is going

on in the text. Their headings are really good for students as well because the headings for each

part of this section are colorful for the students to not look past on. If there were just some basic

colors students could easily read right past them. The weakness of this section is that there are

not a lot of definitions on the page for students to utilize. There was only one definition that I

could see on page 63, so I felt as though there definitely could have been more in the book or

textbook but that is so much work for some students and they could be sick of going back and

forth just to look up words that they need to know. Another thing is that there is no review of if

you have learned this before. The review of certain things would help students kick start their

background knowledge and could make it easier for them to go through the math work. The last

weakness that I noted is the fact that answers to the questions at the end of the section are all in

the back of the book. It would be much easier for students to see the answer right after all the

problems than going back and forth between the section at hand and the back of the textbook.

Some assumptions that I have when reading this is that the identity that they are trying to get

arccos to you is that you are going to be a mathematician when doing this. Their author will
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think that the students will have a basic understanding of what this section will be about but the

problem is that what is the students don’t know what is going on. There should be a little review

of what will be needed from this section embedded. It can then start to help activate the student's

background knowledge of the text. There are some considerations that I would make if I were to

ever use this textbook. To start I would make a vocabulary list for my students. Then I would

start I little review game for them to activate that background knowledge that they have. With

the students in the textbook, I would consider using academic vocabulary before we jump into

the textbook. I would also try to look online for more problems for students because from my

experiences in the classroom having more problems will be a huge help for them to better

understand the content area that we are going over.

Conclusion

I assume that teachers didn't care for textbooks. In my classes in high school I hardly ever

used a textbook. I always saw teachers finding different things to use instead of a textbook. What

I learned is that textbooks are a big waste of time. I learned that there are so many other ways to

learn more than just throwing the students a big textbook and telling them to read from that. This

helped me because it gave me an understanding that a textbook is not the only source in the

classroom. Reading the textbook gave me a hard time understanding things. So we can bring the

textbook into a smaller type of information that can better help make the students process their

information. This assignment helped me understand that a textbook can be challenging. There

are so many things that are going on in a math textbook that can make students get confused so

easily. Then it also taught me to make sure to give students the correct material to help them

comprehend the whole book. I will look over the textbook and pick the best thing from the book
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and make it simpler to understand. I will talk to the school administration about how giving

something other than the text book will let students breath easier in class. This can help with a lot

less stress and much better comprehension.

References

McAskill, B. (2012). Pre-calculus 12. McGraw-Hill Ryerson.

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