Midterm Review (Day 63)

SOLVE FOR Y

First Verse:

If you wanna get y,

First you isolate y,

Move all that is not y,

That's how you can get by.

Chorus:

Solve for y. (x4)

Second Verse:

Number with y you see.

Divide all that you see.

Slope intercept you see.

That's how it's gotta be.

This is the third song that I'm writing in 12EDL, our main scale for November and December. But to understand why I wrote this particular song, we must go back to yesterday's department/CT meeting, where several discussions were made regarding  both Math I and III.

First, it all began with the results of the District Benchmark Tests. Let's go back to the "Benchmark Tests" song and recall some important lines:

The teacher sees our Benchmark Tests,

Knows what to teach now more or less.

That's the way to go, go, go! (x2)

And that's exactly what we did yesterday -- look at the Benchmarks and decide what to teach next. In Math III, we've decided that the district tests will count for a grade. But in Math I, the consensus is that the district tests won't count. Instead, the upcoming Chapter 2 Test on DeltaMath will be beefed up into a full "midterm" exam. (I know, "midterm" is a misnomer -- we're just barely getting the test in before the end of the second hexter, which is itself past the mathematical two-thirds point of the semester.)

But keep in mind that in order to circumvent the grade point weighting system, I've been working hard to count points and make sure that the same number of points are assigned in each weighted category. By excluding the district test and making the Chapter 2 Test into a midterm, it leaves a huge hole in the chapter test category. Unless I'm careful, I might wind up with the Chapter 1 Test being automatically weighted more than the midterm.

Well, there was another assignment mentioned during yesterday's meeting that could fill this hole -- a line art project, to expand the Desmos activity I mentioned last week in my November 1st post. If we give the project next week, then I can count it as a chapter test and make the points work out better.

But what this does is put the squeeze on Chapter 3. The Math I leader reassures us that we can cover Chapter 3 quickly after Thanksgiving break. After all, there are many more chapters to cover during the second semester, with every chapter from 4 on getting only a few weeks each. Now Chapter 3 will also get a few weeks after Chapters 1 and 2 keep getting extended.

So today's Math I lesson turned into review for the midterm exam. One topic that we're scrambling to cover before the midterm is converting from standard to slope-intercept form. Today's song also happens to fit today's Math III lesson -- the current Chapter 5 is on finding inverses. Today's lesson is specifically on interchanging x and y -- and then solving for y -- to find function inverses algebraically.

https://www.haplessgenius.com/mocha/

10 N=8
20 FOR V=1 TO 2
30 FOR X=1 TO 36
40 READ A,T
50 SOUND 261-N*A,T*2
60 NEXT X
70 RESTORE

80 NEXT V

90 END

100 DATA 7,8,8,8,9,2,7,2,7,6,6,6

110 DATA 7,8,8,8,9,2,7,2,7,6,6,6

120 DATA 7,8,8,8,9,2,7,2,7,6,6,6

130 DATA 7,8,8,8,9,2,7,2,7,6,6,6

140 DATA 10,8,9,8,11,16

150 DATA 10,8,9,8,11,16

160 DATA 10,8,9,8,11,16

170 DATA 10,8,9,8,11,16

As usual, click on Sound before you RUN the program.

Originally, I was going to make this an AAA song with only verses. But when I ran it through my TI music generator, I got just three notes -- two half notes (Degrees 10, 9)and a whole note (11). Not only was this song too simple, but with no tonic note (Degree 12 or 6), we could hardly call it a true, complete 12EDL song. So I made this into a chorus and then ran the generator again to get the verse tune of an ABAB song.

Again, the chorus goes 10-9-11, which converts to C-D-B (or Bb). Since Am is the tonic, I decided to use Am-G as the chorus riff. It's possible to play G as Gm (or even a G5 power chord), so that the riff can fit both the Bb and B interpretations of Degree 11. The verse riff can go something like C-D, with a preponderance of D major chord notes (9, 7, 6 or D, F#, A).