Solving Problems Using Math Terminology

At a Glance:

Grades:	6, 7
Subject:	ESL/ELL (English Language Learning); Math
Topic:	Language of Mathematics
Lesson Length:	30 - 45 mins

Standards / Framework:

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.