In this lesson, students practice understanding graphs in situations by first matching descriptions of situations to graphs and then practicing writing their own descriptions of a graph. In the associated Algebra 1 lesson, students draw graphs to represent situations. The work of this lesson allows students to do the same process in a more concrete direction.

When students match situations and graphs, then later describe graphs, they are constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others (MP3). Drawing the connection between the situation and the graph also requires students to reason abstractly and quantitatively (MP2).