What's Going On in This Graph?

Want a fresh way to incorporate source-based writing, technical vocabulary, and discussion into your content area? Look no further–The New York Times’ What’s Going On in This Graph? is here to help! Here’s how it works:

Every Friday of the school year, NYT posts a graph, map, or chart that has already been posted in another section of the newspaper, but without the article and related context. A series of questions similar to the following are posed within a notice/wonder format:
  • What do you notice? If your notice makes a claim, where in the graph is the evidence to support it?
  • What do you wonder?
  • How does this relate to you and your community?
  • What’s going on in this graph? Create a catchy headline that captures the graph’s main idea.
Early in the week after the graph is posted, What’s Going On in This Graph? holds a nifty discussion that is facilitated live in the comments section during the day. You can learn more about that here.

If that part sounds like a lot to think about in the proverbial scatterplot of life, you don’t have to take advantage of the discussion! Use these graphs as bell-ringers, quick-writes, collaborative written responses, Jamboard responses, Padlet quick-writes, and Canvas discussions. You could also print them out for a gallery walk.

I hope you enjoy sifting through these and finding ones that are best aligned to your content area and your students’ interests. Providing quick, interesting ways for students to interact with data, draw conclusions, and convey their thoughts in writing has invaluable benefits for their critical thinking and writing skills.

To dig into specific graph types and subjects, check out the archives that link to all past releases, organized by topic, graph type and statistics term.

The notice/wonder protocol is no new invention, but if you’d like to see it in action, here’s a short video from Edutopia.

Personally, I was a little shook up by this nutrition graph–I will never stop eating birthday cake-flavored granola, no matter what the divisive nutritionist community says.

Jennifer Walton
Assistant Director of Secondary Learning

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