Standards Correlations

R.1, R.2, R.3, R.4, R.6, R.7, W.1, SL.1, L.4, L.6

Learning Objective

Students will read and summarize an article about the rising costs of concert tickets.

Key Skills

summarizing, text features, vocabulary,  author’s purpose, inference, cause and effect, critical thinking, argument writing

Complexity Factors

Purpose: The text discusses some causes of the dramatic rise in ticket prices and some possible solutions. 

 

Structure: The article contains narrative and informational passages. 

 

Language: The language is mainly conversational.

 

Knowledge Demands: Some experience making online purchases will be helpful.

Levels

Lexile: 700L-800L 

Guided Reading Level: Q 

DRA Level: 40

SEL Connection

This story and lesson plan promote social awareness. 

Lesson Plan: The Ticket Price Problem

Essential Questions

  • How do businesses decide how much to charge for the things they sell?
  • How do people decide how much they’re willing to pay for something?

Literature Connection

  • Novel: Small Steps by Louis Sachar
  • Nonfiction: Who Were the Beatles? by Geoff Edgers

1. Preparing to Read 

Build Background Knowledge (10 minutes)

Have students prepare to read the article by taking our interactive prereading quiz, which will activate their prior knowledge about concerts and tickets as well as providing new facts on the topic.

Preview Text Features (15 minutes)

Guide students to locate the article in their magazines or at Action Online. Then preview the text features by asking the following questions:

  • Read the article’s title and subtitle (the text beneath the title). What “problem” does the title refer to? The problem mentioned in the title is that many young music fans find it almost impossible to get concert tickets.
  • The article includes images of three performers. Who are they, and what do the image captions tell you about them? The people shown in the pictures are Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Drake. The image captions tell us how much people paid for some of their concert tickets.

Preview Vocabulary (10 minutes)

  • Point out the vocabulary box. Read the words (exclusive, guarantee, demand, exorbitant, competition) aloud and discuss their definitions. 
  • Play the Vocabulary Slideshow.

Make a Plan for Reading 

Before students start to read, walk them through a reading plan:

  • Set a purpose for reading by telling students that the article “The Ticket Price Problem” provides an explanation for the rising cost of concert tickets, as well as some possible solutions.  
  • Point out the Pause and Think boxes. Tell students they can check their understanding of what they’ve read by answering these questions.
  • Point out the activity at the end of the article, and tell students they will complete it after reading. Encourage them to briefly scan the questions and to keep them in mind as they read.

2. Reading and Unpacking the Text

Read the article. (Higher- and lower-Lexile versions are available on the Story page at Action Online. Click Presentation View to access an audio read-aloud.) Then discuss the following close-reading and critical-thinking questions.

Close-Reading Questions (15 minutes)

  • The author begins the article by describing Kaya Roy’s experience trying to get tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. Why do you think she chose to start with this story? (author’s purpose) Reading about Kaya’s experience can help you understand how the ticket price problem affects fans. Imagining how fans feel when they try and fail to get concert tickets might help readers see why it’s important to understand what is causing the problem and how it might be solved.
  • The article mentions two ways to get into a ticket presale. Why would someone want to get into a presale? (inference) Since a presale gives a limited number of people the opportunity to buy tickets ahead of the general public, getting into one gives you a better chance of getting the tickets you want. 
  • The article says the U.S. government is looking into whether Ticketmaster has too much power. In what way might the company have too much power? (cause and effect) Because Ticketmaster is the biggest ticket seller in the United States, fans often end up accepting the company’s high fees in order to get concert tickets. If there is no other way to get tickets to a particular show, then Ticketmaster doesn’t face the risk of fans buying their tickets somewhere else. That’s a lot of power. 

Critical-Thinking Question (5 minutes)

  • The article says that in June, Ticketmaster said it would start showing a ticket’s total cost from the start. How will that help fans who want to buy tickets? (critical thinking) This new practice could help fans in a number of ways. For one thing, fans won’t be surprised by a higher cost at checkout. For another, if fans know in advance that a ticket will really cost $132 instead of $100, some might decide not to buy tickets. If demand is lower because prices appear to be higher, websites might be less likely to crash. Over time, ticket prices might even go down.

3. Skill Building and Writing

  • Have students work in pairs to complete the Spotlight Skill activity at the end of the article.
  • Go further: Assign students to work independently on our Summarizing Skill Builder, available in higher- and lower-level versions. (Click here to view all your Skill Builders for this article.)
  • Writing prompt: The article says that in the 1960s, fans lined up (and even camped out) to buy concert tickets from the box office. Do you think this is a better or worse system than buying tickets online? Answer this question in a well-organized paragraph.

Learn Anywhere Activity

An enrichment activity to extend the learning journey at home or in the classroom

Project the task below on your whiteboard or share it with students in your LMS.

Do the math.

You’ll find many numbers in the article “The Ticket Price Problem.” To better understand what some of these numbers mean, do the math problems below.

  • The article says that service fees can add as much as 32 percent to the total cost of a concert ticket. Imagine that you’re buying a $1,200 ticket to a Beyoncé concert. With the additional 32 percent, what would the total cost be? (Hint: Add $32 for every $100.)
  • Based on the article, $6 in 1964 (roughly the price of a ticket to a Beatles concert at the time) is about $58 in today’s money.  Based on that math, if a train ticket cost $9 in 1964, about how much would that same train ticket cost today? (Hint: Nine is one-and-a-half of 6. What’s one-and-a-half of 58?) 
  • The author says that Taylor Swift would have had to play more than 900 stadium shows to make every fan happy. If Swift played 5 shows a week, how many weeks would it take her to play 900 shows? (Hint: One quick way to divide a number by 5 is to divide it by 10 and then double the result.)

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