Lesson Plan

Grade Level: 8th

Subject / Content area: Integrated Algebra
Unit of Study: Linear Relationship
Lesson Title: Finding slope of a line that goes through the origin
Central Focus for the learning segment:
Students apply reasoning skills to develop understanding in ratio to slope by exploring a way
to measure steepness.
Content Standard(s):
8.EE.B.5 Understand the connections between proportional relationships, lines, and linear
equations.
Learning Objectives associated with the content standards:
To be able to make a connection our understanding in ratio and slope by exploring a way to
measure steepness.
Instructional Resources and Materials to engage students in learning: Kuta worksheet,
connected Mathematics Moving Straight Ahead by Prentice Hall
Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks that support diverse student needs. (Include
what you and students will be doing.):
Teacher modeling: I will model and tell them to copy down what students should have in
their notes such as important concepts or ideas on the board so that everybody including
those who do not follow classroom conversation due to lack of ability to understand/speak
English can take a good notes. This modeling also helps students in terms of organizing
their notes.

Differentiation and planned universal supports: The worksheet is fairly straightforward

since I designed it to guide the whole class through the lesson. Calculations are simple
enough such that students will be able to solely focus on finding the slope.
For those who finish early, I will ask them to come up with an equation that would represent
one of lines that they constructed.
Language Function students will develop. Additional language demands and
language supports: Slope, change in y (rise), change in x (run), x, y, compare, ratio,
define, explain, prove

Type of Student Assessments and what is being assessed:

Informal Assessment: Asking questions to individual students while I circulate the
room. Randomly call on students to answer questions.

Formal Assessment: Worksheet, homework assignments

Lesson Timeline:
DO NOW (10 min)
Suppose you are climbing up a staircase. Which staircase do you think would be the easiest
to climb? Which one would be the hardest? (1 min)

Take a vote on hardest staircase to climb and ask why (2 min)

Staircase # 4 would be the obvious choice for this question due to inconsistency of ratio of
rise to run. After students all agree, I will immediately eliminate choice #4 and ask the same
question again. Briefly mention the fact that carpenters actually have a guideline to follow
when they are building staircases.
Take a vote on easiest staircase to climb by asking students to raise their hands to their
choices. I will ask why. (2 min)
Ask students to put a number on steepness ask why they assign such a number to each
steepness. Hopefully they assigned the biggest number to the steepest staircase and
assigned the smallest number to the least steep staircase. If there are students who
assigned numbers in opposite way, I will let students to have a discussion to convince one

another. At the end of discussion, every student should agree that bigger number describes
steeper staircase. (5 min)
Mini-Lesson (15 min)
Refer back to Do Now staircases, but with grid this time. Students will be given with a
handout of staircases on grid paper. Also, the same graph will appear on the Smartboard.
Introduce terms rise (change in x) and run (change in y). Then ask students, what is
constant or unchanging? Rise or run? All staircases would have a run (change in x) of 1
unit. I will ask students to compare value of rise and run. Also ask, what do we use to
compare two values? (Ratio) Some students will have rise over run whereas other students
will have run over rise. Compare the values of each ratio and ask which describes
steepness better. Refer back to the conclusion of the discussion from Do Now. We will arrive
to another conclusion that numbers that we obtain from the ratio of rise to run describes
steepness better. (5 min)
I will ask student to plot points at the tip of staircases and connect those dots to draw a line
using the ruler. Students should be able to construct a line except for staircase #4. I will ask
why that they could not construct a line for #4 while they could for the others. Again,
inconsistency of ratio will be causing this trouble. (3 min)
Now I am going to have a line on a grid and ask: Can you relate what we just did to
measure steepness of the staircases to measure steepness of this line? Every student
should be able to tell me that we measure rise (change in y) to run (change in x), and
compare those values using the ratio of rise (change in y) to run (change in x). Have a
student demonstrate and explain the process in front of the whole class. (5 min)
Introduce the definition of slope: the ratio of the vertical change to the horizontal change.
(2 min)

Individual work (10 min)

On the back of the worksheet that was distributed during Mini-lesson, there would be
practice problems, which students will work individually. I designed these worksheets such
that it would minimize time wasted by providing the grid with axes to plot points and graph.
Also, given points are not arithmetically challenging so that students will be able to be
focused on finding slope rather than checking their calculations. On the last question, I

purposely ask students to describe the strategy to find slope without graphing since the
formula of slope is not yet revealed. Some students already learn about slope in advance
outside of classroom thus while circulating I will make sure to have those students to come
up with equations that would represent the line that they graphed for exercise # 5 and 6.
This would be also served as a pre-assessment whether they have learned about the pointintercept form.
Going over (10 min)
Students will be asked to come up with the Smartboard to demonstrate and explain what
they did. Due to the straightforwardness of problems, it will be a quick review of what we
learn about slope. If time allows, I would make the last question a whole class discussion.
We will talk about students strategies and methods and eventually generalize a formula for
slope.
Wrap-Up (10 min)
I will pull out the definition of slope that I gave during mini-lesson and add what we have
generalized over the classroom discussion.