Lesson 14

Use Diagrams to Compare

Warm-up: Notice and Wonder: What Kind of Graph Is This? (10 minutes)

Narrative

The purpose of this warm-up is to elicit the idea that tape diagrams are similar to bar graphs and can be used to represent the same data, which will be useful as students make sense of the tape diagram throughout this section. While students may notice and wonder many things about these images, recognizing that tape diagrams can show comparisons like a bar graph is the important discussion point.

When students make connections between the different ways the representations represent the same categories and quantities, they reason abstractly and quantitatively and look for and make use of structure (MP2, MP7).

Launch

  • Groups of 2
  • Display the image.
  • “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
  • 1 minute: quiet think time

Activity

  • “Discuss your thinking with your partner.”
  • 1 minute: partner discussion
  • Share and record responses.

Student Facing

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

Horizontal bar graph. Juice Flavors for the Party. Horizontal axis from 0 to 16 by ones. Vertical axis labeled lemonade, fruit punch, apple, grape. Length of bar: Lemonade, 12. Fruit punch, 6. Apple, 15. Grape, 8.

Diagram. Two rectangles of equal length labeled Apple and Grape.
Diagram. Two rectangles of equal length. Rectangle on top labeled apple, shaded green, total length, 15. Rectangle on the bottom labeled grape. Rectangle on bottom partitioned into two parts. First part, shaded blue, total length 8. Second part has dashed outline, total length, question mark.

Student Response

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Activity Synthesis

  • “The 2 images at the bottom are called diagrams.”
  • “What do you think the 15 and 8 represent in the diagrams at the bottom?” (Its how many students that picked apple juice and how many students picked grape juice.)
  • “What does the question mark in the diagram represent?” (The difference between the number of students that picked apple juice and grape juice, how many more students picked apple juice than grape juice, how many fewer students picked grape juice than apple juice.)

Activity 1: Party Time (Part 1) (20 minutes)

Narrative

The purpose of this activity is for students to use their understanding of bar graphs to make sense of tape diagrams. Students physically create a tape diagram from a bar graph and compare two of the categories. Students recognize that even without a given scale, they can use this visual structure to compare amounts and reason about the difference between the two (MP2).

Students revisit the meaning of a diagram—a drawing or picture that represents quantities.

MLR2 Collect and Display. Collect the language students use as they make comparison statements. Display words and phrases used to compare data such as “fewer,” “less,” “least,” “greater,” “more,” and “most.” During the synthesis, invite students to suggest ways to update the list: “What are some other comparison words or phrases we should include?” Invite students to borrow language from the display as needed.
Advances: Conversing, Reading
Action and Expression: Provide Access for Physical Action. Provide access to pre-cut materials to reduce barriers for students who need support with fine-motor skills and students who benefit from extra processing time.
Supports accessibility for: Fine Motor Skills, Organization, Visual-Spatial Processing

Required Materials

Materials to Gather

Materials to Copy

  • Party Time

Launch

  • Groups of 3–4
  • Display the Party Time bar graph from the blackline master.
    Horizontal bar graph. Party Time. Horizontal axis from 0 to 20 by ones. Vertical axis labeled pizza, burgers, hot dogs. Length of bar: Pizza, 19. Burgers, 8. Hot dogs, 14.
  • “What can we learn from this graph?”
  • Share responses.
  • “A soccer team is having a party. The coach asked the players if they would like hot dogs, burgers, or pizza. Their responses are shown in this bar graph.“
  • Give each student a copy of the blackline master, scissors, and tape or glue.

Activity

  • “Cut out each of the bars in the graph and put the strips next to each other. What comparison statements can you make about the bars?”
  • 5 minutes: small-group work time
  • “What comparison statements did you make about the data? Did anyone get confused about what each bar represented? Did anyone get confused about how many are in each bar?”
  • 3–4 minutes: class discussion
  • “We can use the bars to make a diagram, like the one we saw in the warm-up. A diagram can be used to help us represent and compare quantities. Just like graphs, diagrams need labels so we can understand what they represent. Use your bars to create a diagram to compare the number of students who wanted hot dogs to those who wanted burgers. When you’re done, write two different statements that compare hot dogs to burgers.”
  • 5 minutes: independent work time
  • Monitor for students who label the categories and quantities.

Student Facing

  1. Glue down the two bars that compare the number of students who picked hot dogs to the number who picked burgers.
  2. Write two statements that compare the number of students who picked hot dogs to the number who picked burgers.

Student Response

For access, consult one of our IM Certified Partners.

Advancing Student Thinking

If students label the diagram incorrectly, consider asking:

  • "How does this diagram show the greater value?"
  • "Where do you see the difference between the values in the diagram?"

Activity Synthesis

  • Display a student’s completed tape diagram.
  • “How does your diagram make it easy to see which food received the most votes?” (We wrote labels to show which bar matches which food.)
  • “What do you need to add to the bars to answer questions like ‘How many more students chose hot dogs than burgers?’” (Label what number the bar represents.)
  • 1 minute: quiet think time
  • 1 minute: partner discussion
  • Share responses.
  • As needed, draw a diagram that resembles the tape diagram in the warm-up.
  • “Diagrams can help represent Compare problems. You can use rectangles like the bars in a bar graph to represent the bigger amount, the smaller amount, and the difference.”

Activity 2: Party Time (Part 2) (15 minutes)

Narrative

The purpose of this activity is for students to complete a tape diagram and describe the features of tape diagrams. Throughout the activity, students use what they know about bar graphs to make sense of what each number in a tape diagram represents and the role of the question mark. They also connect the structure of the tape diagram to equations that represent a comparison of two quantities (MP2). As students connect the labels on the tape diagram to the question, the features on the graph, and the context, they attend to precision and reason abstractly and quantitatively (MP6).

Launch

  • Groups of 2

Activity

  • “Now you are going to use the data from the Party Time graph to complete some more diagrams.”
  • 3 minutes: quiet work time
  • 6 minutes: partner discussion

Student Facing

  1. Use the data from the bar graph to complete the diagram.

    Horizontal bar graph. Party Time. Horizontal axis from 0 to 20 by ones. Vertical axis labeled pizza, burgers, hot dogs. Length of bar: Pizza, 19. Burgers, 8. Hot dogs, 14.

    Diagram. Two rectangles of equal length. Rectangle on top label is blank, partitioned into 2 parts. First part, shaded, total length, blank. Second part has dashed outline, total length, blank. Rectangle on the bottom labeled, blank, shaded, total length, 19.

  2. How many more students chose pizza than chose burgers? Write an equation to show how you found the difference.
  3. Use the data from the bar graph to complete the diagram.

    Diagram. Two rectangles of equal length. Rectangle on top not labeled, partitioned into 2 parts. First part, shaded, total length, 14. Second part has dashed outline, total length, question mark. Rectangle on the bottom labeled pizza, shaded, total length, blank.
  4. Write a statement that compares the student votes in the diagram.

Student Response

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Advancing Student Thinking

If the student assigns the larger value to the smaller part or places the question mark in a place other than the difference, consider asking:

  • "Can you explain your representation to me?"
  • "How can you use the bar graph to help you label the diagram?

Activity Synthesis

  • “How did you figure out what food was being compared to pizza?” (We looked for the food that was picked by 14 students.)
  • “What does the question mark represent in the diagram?” (It shows the difference between hot dogs and pizza. It shows how many more students would need to pick hot dogs to be the same as the number of students who picked pizza.)
  • Point out the dashes representing the difference, but not an actual quantity.
  • “What equation could we write to represent this difference?” (\(19-{?} =14\), \(14 + {?} = 19\)
  • Record responses.
  • “How do you see each number represented in the diagram?” (19 shows how many picked pizza, 14 shows how many picked hot dogs. The question mark shows the difference.)

Lesson Synthesis

Lesson Synthesis

“Today, we learned about diagrams that can represent problems in which we compare two amounts.”

Display tape diagram from warm-up:

Diagram. Two rectangles of equal length. Rectangle on top labeled apple, shaded green, total length, 15. Rectangle on the bottom labeled grape. Rectangle on bottom partitioned into two parts. First part, shaded blue, total length 8. Second part has dashed outline, total length, question mark.

“Tell your partner a story that is represented by this diagram.” (Sample response: Eight students voted for grape juice. 15 students voted for apple juice. How many more students voted for apple juice?)

Cool-down: Dogs at the Pet Shop (5 minutes)

Cool-Down

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