Math 1 · Unit 2 · Lesson 5
Graphing Stories: Match the Picture to the Story
Go both ways between a story and a graph. Read a graph of distance, height, or temperature and tell what happened, using the behavior words. Sketch a graph from a story by its shape: climbs, levels off, drops, or jumps. Then match graphs to stories, and watch for the classic mix-up of reading a distance graph as if it were a speed graph.
The big idea
A graph and a story are the same thing in two languages. To translate a graph into a story, walk along it left to right and name each stretch with the Lesson 4 words: climbing means growing, flat means not changing, falling means shrinking, and steeper means faster. To translate a story into a graph, take it one stretch at a time and draw the shape: climb, level off, drop, or jump. The one trap is forgetting what the axis measures. A flat stretch on a distance graph means you stopped; the same flat stretch on a speed graph means you kept a steady pace. Read the label first, then the shape.
The parts of this lesson
Each part is its own short page. Go in order, or pick the one you need.
Printables
One page with the four shapes, the flat and steeper rules, the trip graph told as a story, and the distance-versus-speed trap. Plus a worksheet with sketching grids and an answer key, and a short lesson plan.