Overview:  The teacher launches the problem with an introduction about patterns and pottery design.  First, the teacher tries to establish a connection with students’ knowledge of patterns in their own lives and homes.  After a couple students offer examples, the teacher introduces the context of patterns in Hopi pottery pieces.  The teacher points out that when pottery pieces have “representative patterns”, archaeologists can use those patterns to reconstruct old pieces of pottery. 

Prior knowledge:  In this launch, the teacher tries to establish a connection with students’ prior knowledge of the context of the problem.  The teacher may expect that students have some knowledge of geometric patterns, for example in quilts, pottery pieces, or artwork, at home.  The first example offered by a student, of checkered floor tiles, is an example of a pattern, but it’s not the type of geometric pattern the teacher was probably hoping for, because it is not a clear example of a geometric transformation.  Finally, the teacher tries to connect students’ experiences with the examples of Hopi pottery.  In painting the pottery, Hopi people could express ideas and art into the pieces they created.  Now, those paintings allow archaeologists to rebuild pieces that have come apart or have been partially destroyed.  Students can put themselves in the position of being an archaeologist trying to use the clues of the context to put back together a piece of pottery.

Other points of interest:  The first thing the teacher does here is to ask students for examples of patterns in their homes.  Students are at first reluctant to offer examples.  Jamal suggests the idea of checkered floor tiles, which is a pattern, but not a pattern that illustrates geometric transformations in a very obvious way.  The teacher makes a decision to offer an example of his own, the example of the quilt.  He describes the geometric shapes on the quilt, perhaps to provoke students to think about geometric shapes and patterns.  Overall, students do not offer many examples of patterns in their homes, and the teacher transitions to talking about the Hopi context.