y=mx+b Fight Song

Today we learned how the things we've been studying in Algebra -- lately working with slope, and finding intercepts, and drawing graphs of lines, are all brought together in one tidy little equation shape: slope intercept form! For those of you less familiar with math jargon, that was the y=mx+b form you remember graphing with.

To celebrate the occasion -- and to show my students that I'm not always just a boring math teacher -- I wrote the Y=MX+B fight song, and we celebrated by singing it at the tops of our lungs.  I wrote it to the tune of a college fight song -- not my alma mater's of Michigan State, and not (God forbid!) the other university's, but chose a neutral college, Notre Dame.  The lyrics are posted below:

Y equals m x, + b 

That's the way to graph naturally 

m is how lines move - that's slope 

 b stands for the y intercept! 

Start with the slope: that's rise over run 

Write as a fraction - man this is fun! -- 

Tack on where the line begun 

 you're Graphing to victory!

If you've forgotten the tune, you may listen to it here:

 Note that the video plays through the song twice, so you can imagine me singing it to you the first time, and then stand up and join in the second time around.  

If anyone besides my wife comments, I might consider recording my own voice singing it, but I'm pretty sure no one reads this thing anyway.