The unit on Urban Life will, in the field of mathematics, help students learn to view the world around them in more mathematical ways and will enable them to successfully use algebraic skills in their post-high school lives. The unit is geared for 10th grade students studying basic algebra. They are taken to have little experience with algebra and the hope is that by showing them the usefulness of the skills they will gainin this class, they will be more able to succeed in this class and those to follow. The final goal of the unit is to have the students, as a class, prepare and evaluate a budget for the Poetry Slam fundraising we will be holding and, individually, to hypothesize a post-graduate budget for themselves.
As part of the attempt to make math more accessible to students, this unit will focus less on traditional formula/equation-centered math. Instead, students will work with real world applications of mathematical skills. The culminating project, the Poetry Slam, will allow the students to apply their learning in a very hands-on and gratifying way. Moreover, each student will draw up a personal budget, giving them a chance both to apply their learning and to practice a skill, budgeting, which will be very practically useful when they are out of school. Most of these students are likely to remain in an urban area like San Francisco after they finish school and given the high price of living, the ability to budget and make financial plans is imperative. The goal of this aspect of the unit is to give the students tangible skills that they will use throughout their lives, and which some of them may never get otherwise.
Literacy skills are not often a part of a mathematical curriculum, which may explain why so many students never truly grasp the fundamental skills necessary to more advanced mathematical study and application. In an attempt to remedy this, the class will include some element of literacy skill-building every day. The students will each keep a math journal in which they will be asked to free-write both during class and as part of their homework. This journal will not be read for assessment but rather checked regularly, simply to ensure that the students are actually writing in them. They will be graded on a pass/fail basis. Aside from journal writing, the students will be asked to work in small groups frequently and one of the major focuses of the unit will be on translating from math to English and vice versa. They will also read a brief excerpt towards to end of the unit.
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