Story Problem, Dropping a car.

This story problem is an experiment in slightly more authentic questions.  There is a physics underpinning, and the students have to figure out how to translate something they understand, driving a car at freeway speeds, to something they can only imagine, dropping off a tall building.  I've given it to two different students who have struggled to understand math, and who also happen to be ELLs, and both have had a more intuitive interaction with the question than they have with most of the math I've presented to them.  The text isn't minimal, but it is simple words.  The sentences have not been barriers, at least to students with middle to upper WIDA levels.

My experience suggests that students don't feel confident about their ability to do story problems, but when they get into them, the enjoy them more and learn more than from context-free math.