Brosden and Bella - The Data Organizer

This is a book idea incorporating the 5th grade curriculum into story form. I am still fine-tuning it.


The Data Organizer

Brosden and Bella were in trouble again. Their math teacher, Mr. Flooberhazen, had given them the particularly tough assignment of explaining how to organize data. And they had to do it in front of the entire class tomorrow!

"I'll never be able to do this!" cried Brosden. "I'm not even sure what data is, so how can I organize what I don't know?" "What do you think it is?" his sister asked, smiling mischievously. She knew her brother didn't like to think.

"I don't know" Brosden replied quickly. "Come on, you know what Dad says, 'I don't know means I'm not thinking.'" Bella reminded him. "What could 'data' mean?" Brosden turned his head slightly, shrugged his shoulders and said "day-tah....maybe it has something to do with the day?" Bella just looked at him. It was obvious she took school more seriously than her brother.

"O.K., O.K., it has something to do with math. I'll look it up in my reference book" Brosden said as he gave in. "Allrighty. In the index it says the definition of 'data' is on page 108." Brosden hurriedly leafed to the correct page and read aloud. "Oh, 'data' is information you collect about something. That was easy."

"Now we just have to learn how to organize it" Bella said. Brosden groaned at the thought of having more work to do. "Look, if we organize the data it will be easier to understand. You'll be able to go back to playing after that. Mr. Foozlebottom said we could use line plots to do this." "Yeah, I remember him saying that," replied her brother, "but I had no idea what he was talking about."

"Remember how he used our language arts test scores as an example?" Bella asked. "The number of correct answers received was on the bottom of the chart and the number of students earning each amount was on the left." Brosden squinted his eyes trying to remember. "Oh yeah! Um, do you remember who got a higher score than his sister on this line plot?"

Bella ignored him and continued. "There were 18 questions on the test. We had to organize all the scores by placing an 'X' above the number each student got right." "Yeah, but do you remember who had an 'X' above a higher number than his sister?" teased Brosden.

Bella bit her lip and said "I'm so happy for you" through clenched teeth. She couldn't stand it when Brosden sometimes spent less time studying and still did better than she did. It didn't happen often but killed her just the same. "Now Mr. Smarty Pants, how would you organize the class scores on a line plot? Come on genius" she goaded him.

Brosden looked at the scores, which ranged from 7 correct responses to a high of 18. "O.K., O.K., I may have earned a higher score in language arts but you rule in math, Oh Great One" Brosden said as he dramatically bowed before her. "Well let me help you then" Bella smiled. "First, you draw a horizontal line at the bottom. Then, starting at the left of this line, you put a 7,8,9,10,11...all the way to 18 at the far right. Got that?" she asked.

"Yes. Got it. I put the number of correct answers from smallest to highest" Brosden said as he drew the line and the numbers. "But I still don't understand how you put the scores everybody in class got." "No problem" Bella excitedly said. "All you have to do is look at the data, or class scores. Let's see. One person got 7 right, so you put one 'X' above the '7'. Two people got 8 right, so you put two 'X's' above the '8'."

"But nobody got 9 right on the test, so what do you put? Wait, don't tell me. Maybe you don't put anything since no one got 9 answers correct" Brosden guessed. "That's right" said Bella. "Good thinking."

"Now, my brother, 3 students got 10 right, so how do we organize this?" "Well...we could put 3 'X's' above the '10'" Brosden said hesitantly. "Yes! Oh my brother is such a genius" Bella teased. Together they plotted the rest of the student scores above the line until they were finished.

"This is easy" Brosden cried out, excited that he might not be embarrassed tomorrow when he had to explain this in front of the class. "You're welcome" Bella said, happy with herself that she was able to help. "You're welcome? For what?" Brosden asked, sounding confused. "For helping you understand how to organize data using a line plot" his sister looked at him expectantly.

"Help me? Who got the higher score on the language arts test?" Brosden said as he opened the door, free to play now that he understood his homework. "Arrrrgggggghhhhhh! I DON'T LIKE MY BROTHER!" Bella screamed as her brother slammed the door.