Algebra: Themes, Tools, Concepts (ATTC) is an algebra textbook I co-authored in the early 90's. It was ground-breaking in some ways, and includes many extraordinarily effective approaches to the teaching of algebra. In fact, ATTC features powerful lessons on many parts of secondary school math, which are used by teachers in grades 7 to 12.
On the other hand, ATTC is not particularly easy to use as a textbook, and never became a best-seller. Thus, the publisher decided to declare it out of print, and the copyright reverted to the authors. It is now available absolutely free, right here, for your non-commercial use.
In particular, I encourage you to use this Index to find lessons you may want to adapt for using in your classes. If you do, check out these Additional Teacher Notes.
--Henri Picciotto
On This Site
- What are Themes, Tools, and Concepts? (Teachers' Edition front matter)
- The whole book, downloadable in its entirety, by chapter, or by lesson
- The whole book on line, digitized by Google, in color and searchable
- The Teacher's Edition, in color and searchable
- Additional Teacher Notes
- Index to selected topics and tools
- Additional Teacher Resources
- The book makes extensive use of the Lab Gear manipulatives.
- Predictably, ATTC was controversial. Read my response to a critic.
- The philosophy behind the book: A New Algebra | Algebra for All | A Visual Model
- I revised some lessons from ATTC, and included them in Geometry Labs.
- Jen Coté wrote a paper: ATTC Through a Deweyian Lens.
- Fan mail: ATTC and Common Core | ATTC and teacher ed
Sample Lessons
Here are some lessons from ATTC. Some are edited.
- Proportional Relationships
- Investigating Rectangle Areas
- Constant Speed
- "In Addition..."
- Three problems
- The McNuggets Problem
- Building Block Numbers
- Generalizing (solution)
- Full lesson plan (with Amanda Cangelosi)
- Interpreting Graphs
- The Bicycle Trip | Follow-up
- In the Lab
- Discounts
- Weight vs. Age
- not from ATTC: Comparing Cell Phone Plans (with Amanda Cangelosi)
- Constant Sums, Constant Products
- (More on this last topic.)
- Equations and Identities
- Three Lessons
- The Cover-Up Method
- Kinds of Numbers
- Systems of Linear Equations
- Part of Lesson 10.6, as a lesson plan, including video and GeoGebra...
- ...and as a Desmos Activity (by Chris Bolognese)
- Constant Sums, Constant Products
- A mega-unit, based on ATTC material
- Function Diagrams
- Nine Function Diagrams
- The Focus
- Representing Linear Functions
- (More on this subject, including animated diagrams.)
- Quadratics
- Maximizing Area | (Condensed version)
- (Related Lessons.)
- Iterating Linear Functions
- Notes
- Worksheets
- (More on this subject.)
- Sequences and Series
- Arithmetic and Geometric
- (Related Lessons)
- Probability
- An Introduction
- Abstract Algebra
- Notes
- Worksheets
- (More on this subject, for teachers.)
