| LESSON OVERVIEW
The lesson plan is based on a TED-Ed video titled “How to spot a misleading graph” by Lea Gaslowitz. The aim of the lesson is to teach students vocabulary and structures they can use while describing graphs in English. In addition, thanks to the video, students will learn how to spot inconsistent data and distorted charts.
C1 / Advanced90 minStandard LessonUnlimited Plan
VOCABULARY
The worksheet starts with exercises on vocabulary. Firstly, students need to complete the table with verbs for going up and down. Secondly, there is an exercise on structures that we should use when describing graphs in English and prepositions that go with verbs and nouns. The third and fourth exercises are practical ones. First, students have to write a description of a line graph given. Next, they work in pairs – one person describes a graph and the other should draw that graph, then they change roles. Graphs to that task are available at the end of the Teacher’s Version pdf.
VIDEO AND DISCUSSION
Then, students watch the video and complete sentences with words they hear in it. In the following task, they have to match these words with their synonyms. The last activity consists questions about issues from the video. You can give your students time to collect ideas to answer the questions and then do an open discussion.
EXTRA TASK
Moreover, there is an extra task at the end of the Teacher’s Version. Give misleading graphs to your students and ask them to analyse them and tell what is wrong with them and how data is misrepresented there.
WORKSHEETS
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Hi!
Very useful lesson.
Could you add the answer key to what is wrong with the misleading graphs?
See here: https://www.frontporchmath.com/topics/probability-statistics/graphs/misleading-graphs/
I can’t see the explanation about the Texas gun crimes graph or uninsured Americans V unemployment graph on the website you have given. Could you post further details?
Ok, so the ‘gun deaths in Florida’ graph is upside down so it looks as if the number of deaths dropped after the law was enacted but in reality it’s quite the opposite. It’s visible once the graph is drawn properly. The other one is wrong in many ways: distorted scale, 2 y-axes not proportionally spaced, drawing it to suggest correlation. If you look for more examples, check the page linked in my comment above – there’s plenty of examples there.
Cheers Stan!
Looks very interesting. I’m gonna try it with my students tomorrow.
Btw the topic is really fascinating, maybe you could try statistics? And How they can mislead us!
Alice, let us know how it’s worked with your students!
Statistics? Yes, why not? We’ll think about it 🙂
It did go well. Although my students are kind of lazy, showing them how they could be misled really interested them.
It’s so funny/sad to see how Fox TV doesn’t like Obama that they would even distort the graphs to show the huge unemployment during his term office. However, TVP also did that …
Long story short, I liked your all lessons so much that I decide to be a patron 🙂 You don’t know how much time you save me!
That is exactly why we should verify the info we get every day and check sources.
We’re really happy our materials save you time and hope you will be satisfied with our premium content!
Thank you so much!! Inredibly useful!
Happy to hear that 🙂
I love this lesson plan! The video is great and in my opinion it’s a topic that has to be widely discussed. The final task of analyzing the graphs is a perfect way to close the lesson and always triggers interesting discussions.
(Btw if you skip the vocabulary part or assign it as HW, it makes for a perfect 60′ class:) )
Natalia, thank you so much for sharing your feedback with us 🙂
what happened to the sample description of the ABC graph?
Hi Michael! There is no sample description for that task provided.
Could you include a description of the graph in ex 3 in the teacher’s version please?
Cheers, great lesson!
Hi, Andrew! We’re happy you like the lesson! There is no description as students might come up with various ways how to approach and describe the graph, but we’ll give it some more consideration and perhaps add a sample description there 🙂