The focus of Accentuate the Negative is on adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing both positive and negative numbers. Students are exposed to true conceptual understanding of how positive and negative integers affect each other, i.e. when adding +5 and -3, the -3 will cancel out 3 positives leaving +2, instead of a list of rules that do not seem to make sense. After true understanding is reached, students are encouraged to come up with the algorithms to speed up computation. The unit concludes with order of operations, the commutative property, and the distributive property to prepare them for eighth grade CMP Algebra.
For an in depth explanation of goals, specific questions to ask your students and examples of core concepts from the unit, go to
Accentuate the Negative.
Online resources for Accentuate the Negative*
Integers
Order of Operations
Properties
Other online resources
Note: These resources require Java in order to run.
