If they have not yet learned this convention, they may instead use positional language (such as 'upper left') to refer to areas in the plane. Students should start using the conventional language in grade 6, so it is recommend that this task be used after the convention is learned however, it could be used to introduce this convention as well.Īs students name the points, they may begin to notice many other things. If students have learned this convention before beginning this task, they might be expected to use the quadrant names in their observations. The solution names the quadrants I, II, III, and IV, which is a convention. When describing the things they notice about the point locations and coordinates, the teacher should encourage students to use terms such as quadrant, distance, origin, sign, axis, and coordinate. This precision in language will be helpful to students when they later discuss opposites and reflections as described in the content standards, and attending to language is a good example of students engaging in MP6. The goal of this task is to introduce students to the relationships between the locations and coordinates of points graphed in all four quadrants of the coordinate plane.

Graphing coordinate plane