Lesson: Escape the Titanic

Distribute or digitally share the “What Do You Know?” literacy skills sheet to each student. Tell students they are about to read an article about the RMS Titanic. Have them complete the first row (What do you know?) and second row (What do you want to know?) about the Titanic. Then play the video “Searching for the Titanic.” As students watch the video, and after the video is finished, have them complete the last two rows of the skills sheet. Then hold a class discussion about any new information they learned from the video about the Titanic.

Play the instructional video. Pause at the times below to ask the following comprehension questions:

• At -3:00, ask: What are the 3 ways to write ratios? Can you write a ratio comparing 3 apples to a total of 15 pieces of fruit in those 3 different ways? (with a colon, as a fraction, or with the word to; 3:15, ³/₁₅ , 3 to 15)

• At -2:40, ask: Why does the order matter in a ratio? Explain, using the last example in the video. (The order of the ratio matches the order of the items being compared. When comparing apples to total pieces of fruit, 3:15 is not the same as 15:3. 3:15 means 3 apples for every 15 total pieces of fruit. 15:3 would mean 15 apples for every 3 total pieces of fruit.)

• At -1:30, ask: How might you simplify the ratio for our fruit example? ( ³/₁₅ ÷ ³/₃ = ¹/₅ )

Ratios and Proportions” box on page 8 individually. Use your class to quickly provide some data examples of each type of ratio and how to solve a proportion. For example, you may identify the number of students wearing a solidcolored shirt versus the number wearing a designed or patterned shirt. Have a volunteer read the text on page 8 and the top half of page 9. Then work through questions 1, 2, and 3 as a group before assigning students to work on the remainder of the story. Ask the following questions:

• For Question 1: How do you know how many of each utensil there is? (You can count the number of each in the place-setting image). What are 3 ways to write the ratio of forks to knives? What type of ratio is this? (6:7, 6 to 7, ⁶/₇ ; part-to-part)

• For Question 2: What type of ratio is this? (part-to-whole)

• For Question 3: How can we write a proportion to solve this question?
( ^{6 glasses} / _{1 place setting} = ^{h glasses} / _{8 place settings}
or ^{6 glasses} / _{h glasses} = ^{1 place setting} / _{8 place settings} )

After reading, ask for students’ opinions on this article type. Some questions you can ask are: How is this article different from the others in the magazine? What did you like or dislike about it?

Provide students with the option of listening to the article read aloud using the special audio recording as they follow along with the text.

Have students draw a cartoon summary of a favorite movie, with math questions incorporated, similar to the graphic novel format of this article. Require that students include questions that use part-to-part ratios, part-towhole ratios, and proportions. You may want to provide a rubric to help guide students to produce their best work. Some criteria for the rubric may include creativity of cartoon, rigor of math questions, support of cartoon with text, and completeness of project.