Loads of Letters

Materials: calculator, an article you found on the Internet or a newspaper article, lyrics for a song, a textbook

Work in a group of two or three.

Procedure for the Activity

Step 1 Use the article you selected. Open it to any page and select 100 consecutive words.
Step 2 Make a table like the one started below. Include each letter of the alphabet.

Letter	Tally	Number	Percent of Total
a
b
:
z
Total Letters

Step 3 For each of the 100 words, make a tally for the letters used. For example, if the first word is "calculator," you would make 2 tally marks for a, 2 for c, 2 for l, and one tally mark for each of o, r, t, and u.
Step 4 After you have recorded the letters in each of the 100 words, place the total number of each letter in the column labeled Number. Then find the total number of letters in the 100 words.
Step 5 Use the percent proportion to find the percent of the total letters represented by each letter. Round each answer to the nearest tenth of a percent and place them in the appropriate cells in the column labeled Percent of Total.
Step 6 Repeat Steps 1 through 5 for the song and the textbook that you selected.

Wrapping Up the Activity

Compare the percent of each letter used in the 100 words for the novel, song lyrics, and the textbook. Write a one–paragraph summary of your findings.