7th-Grade Math Assignment

Seventh-grade students respond to two questions about the proportional relationship between price, number of items or people, and total cost. This assignment is partially aligned with a seventh-grade standard. While both problems appropriately involve equations representing proportional relationships, neither requires students to create the equations themselves.

Focus
This assignment is partially aligned with seventh-grade standard 7.RP.A.2.C, which requires students to represent proportional relationships with equations. Both problems involve equations about the proportional relationship between price, number of items or people, and total cost, which follows the example provided in the standard. However, neither problem requires students to create the equations themselves.

Rigor
This assignment attempts to build students’ conceptual understanding, the aspect of rigor required by standard 7.RP.A.2.C, but it only does so superficially. Problem #1 requires students to understand that the value of variables must make sense within a given context, but students were exposed to this type of conceptual understanding of variables in sixth grade. Furthermore, the problem makes no connection to proportional relationships. Problem #2 could require students to draw upon their understanding of proportional relationships, but it’s also possible for students to answer correctly simply by relying on their procedural knowledge of linear equations and slope (for example, slope = rise/run).

Practice Standards
This assignment allows students to engage with Mathematical Practice Standard #3 (“Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others”) because it asks students to explain the error made by another student. However, this would be a stronger opportunity if students had to independently evaluate the response without knowing that it was incorrect.