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    Solving Problems Using Math Terminology

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    Subject: ESL/ELL (English Language Learning), Math

    Lesson Length: 30 - 45 mins

    Topic: Language of Mathematics

    Grade Level: 6, 7

    Standards / Framework:

    Brief Description: This lesson reinforces the language associated with finding the percent of numbers when solving word problems.

    Know Before You Start: Students should be familiar with how to find a percent of a number. Terms to know: markup, markdown, discount.

    Hook:

    • Read and discuss the sample comic.
      • Would you buy a cookie for that price? 
      • Do you think that the amusement park tickets are a good price?
      • Could there be other reasons, besides price, that would cause people not to come to the amusement park? 
    • Tell students to imagine they are business owners. Use the "Think-Pair-Strategy" to get students to think of an item or service they would like to sell e.g., selling a car or item, babysitting, cooking, developing a new video game or technology, etc.
    • Have students share aloud.

    Activity:

    • Assign students the vocabulary words: markup, markdown, or discount and percentage. 
    • Using the sample comic as a guide, have students create a comic to illustrate what they are selling and how much it will cost. 
      • Panel 1: Students should share their product, the original price of that product, and the percentage they are going to markup or down.
      • Panel 2: Students should solve and find the amount of the markup/down and the new total price.

    Closure:

    • Have students share their comics in small or whole group for an additional oral language opportunity.

    Differentiation:

    • Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
    • Allow students to use the voiceover feature to read their comics aloud.
    • Allow students to work in pairs or groups as needed.
    • Provide sentence frames as needed.
    • Display visuals and translation for vocabulary.
    • Adapt this lesson to fit vocabulary to match your current needs, e.g., tax, sales tax, sales price, original price, selling price.

    Resources:

    • Comic to print or display

    Suggested Content Packs:

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