The Structure of Expressions

Description

In middle school, students applied the properties of operations to add, subtract, factor, and expand expressions (6.EE.3, 6.EE.4, 7.EE.1, 8.EE.1).

Now, in Topic B, students use the structure of expressions to define what it means for two algebraic expressions to be equivalent. In doing so, they discern that the commutative, associative, and distributive properties help link each of the expressions in the collection together, even if the expressions look very different themselves (A-SSE.2). They learn the definition of a polynomial expression and build fluency in identifying and generating polynomial expressions as well as adding, subtracting, and multiplying polynomial expressions (A-APR.1).