Every Graph Tells A Story

Reflection
As my one teaching experiment to re-do from the Fall, I chose Every Graph Tells A Story.
Because interpreting and describing graphs is not only an 8th grade standard, a challenging task on
standardized tests and a task before my students in future math classes, it is also important for their
future role as citizens. Many graphs are shared in newspapers, social media and the like, by people
trying to influence our choices. A basic understanding of which variables are being compared is
important to reading the graph and gives us access to talk about the relationships between the variables
more deeply, using specific evidence from the graph to support our arguments.
Certainly there was very little that remained the same from the first time we did this activity.
The first time we had nearly all students participating and this time nearly half of each class was
finishing a Unit Test in another room. This meant that we had less than 20 students in each class when
we did the second Every Graph Tells A Story. Overall, the activity went exactly as planned and timing
was almost spot on. We had about 15 minutes to work, during which many pairs responded to more
than one of the graphs in the packet. We had time to trade packets and read our classmates responses
and even time to share and discuss at the end.
The activities goals were well embedded into the task as students were asked to describe the
meaning of a point they chose from the graph. All students correctly circled whether the graph was
linear or non-linear, and nearly all explanations were well supported. Reasons ranged from the shape of
the graph, line or curved, to referring to the rate being constant or not constant. One pair used too much
information in the phrase, it doesn't go up at a constant rate to support why a graph was not linear.
Since the graph was decreasing, I would wonder if those students held a misconception about
linear/non-linear and increasing/decreasing graphs being related respectively and not seeing all the
possibilities of the four properties. Since identifying linear and non-linear relationships is an 8th grade
standard and our small groups in each class answered correctly, I would say that goal has been met for

the majority of our 8th grade students.

Most students that responded to the linear graphs also correctly described the relationships
between the variables using words like, increasing, decreasing and constant rate. Many identified the
constant rate correctly and a few wrote an expression, missing the 'y=', yet correctly used the rate as the
coefficient of x and the y-intercept as the constant. Several pairs wrote, 10x +150 for the graph about
the cost related to the number of bikes. Many groups thoughtfully discussed when this graph would
make sense or if it was a 'rip off.' Some groups described the $150 for zero bikes as a fee to fix a bike,
or a fee to rent a bike. As for the linear decreasing graph, most students correctly described that
something was 'losing' 1 gallon of water every hour, though no group wrote an expression using
variables. With these answers, it seem clear that our 8th grade students can describe a linear relationship
between two variables using verbal and written descriptions.
As a good prior knowledge and creative activity it really helped to keep student's interest
between Units. Some were very entertaining, such as the water decreasing over time was used to
describe how some people in the desert died because they drank their water too fast. Or that some one
was filling water balloons. Or that the 5 gallons of water had evaporated in 5 hours. These were all
discussed at the end and as a class we talked about when these situations might occur. Such as when
would 5 gallons of water evaporate in 5 hours? We concluded it would have to be very hot. In a
volcano? On the sun? This was a very interesting conversation that made students consider the other
hidden variables to this interpretation of the graph.
Another difference from the last time was that the graphs were very content specific and not
completely 'real world' relate-able. In other words, these relationships were simple enough for students
to find an equation that represented the graph. The graphs compared miles per hour to hours in an
inverse variation relationship, just as we had done in the warm up. Two graphs used linear
relationships. One compared gallons of water to time as a constant amount of water emptied over 5
hours. One related increasing cost to an increasing number of bikes.

Many students found the correct equation for this linear relationship without being asked.
Which underscores why it was important to use graphs that were within students abilities to model with
mathematics. By finding these equations without prompting, practice nor recently reviewing linear
equations, it seems easier to say that those students have learned to write an increasing linear equation
that matches an increasing graph. That most students did not find an equation for the decreasing linear
graph might suggest that students are less confident about relating an equation that decreases.
This difference, reminds me of the challenges of 'opposites' in mathematics. Students seem to
remember correctly how positive or increasing or whole numbers work. Yet when asked to do the
'opposite' they seem to mix up all the different ways. For example, exponential growth is y=3x and
exponential decay is not negative, yet y=(1/3)x, where the base is between 0 and 1. There are many
opposites in math that students need to remember and both conceptual and computational
understanding are key to recalling these 'opposites' when needed.
From repeating this activity, I have learned that my role as a teacher is to find those little things
I can do to push student thinking deeper. As I read through 1st hour's responses I noticed a lot of 'it' and
'they'. So I added to my directions in the rest of the classes, do not use the words 'it' or 'they' and be
specific when you describe how the variables are changing. I also noticed that the creativity changed
from class to class as some classes focused more on how to describe as many of the relationships
correctly as they could, while some students in other classes focused on why the graph might be
important. I'm sure this is a reflection of how I launch the task a little bit differently in each class and/or
how each of my classes find different aspects of the activity interesting. I would consider using this
task in my future classroom and continue to fine tune my launch to guide students to be creative and
specific in their descriptions of a variety of contextualized graphs.