I am getting the word out on this awesome site: Turner’s Graph of the Week. My friend Kelly Turner did a presentation at the Great San Diego Math Conference last spring and I loved her idea of having students analyze graphs from magazines and newspapers. These are mostly one-quadrant graphs with a natural context. This ties in directly to the Common Core’s call for applications and for reading non-fictional text. I was so impressed that I encouraged her to go public with the idea. I am serving as her megaphone.

Kelly does this activity once a week with her students, thus the name. The site offers several features:

• Graphs. You don’t have to find your own. Kelly has already posted 12, and will post more on the GOWS page of the site as the school year progresses.
• Submissions. If you like the activity and have graphs of your own that would serve others, email them to turner_k@auhsd.us. Kelly will screen the submissions and build the online collection.
• Templates.  There is a generic worksheet template with writing prompts to guide students in reading, interpreting and analyzing the graphs.
• Samples. On the home page Kelly will offer the graph that she is currently using for the week. Directly below that will be a student sample of the previous week’s graph.

Try it. If you like it, share with your colleagues. The same graph can be used at multiple course levels, with the level of questioning being adjusted to the level of students.

Kelly thanks for all the work on this. You have made teachers’ work easier and students’ education better.