Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-70 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Think of a chore you did when you were younger, one you still remember. Write one sentence that tells what happened, as you saw it then. Then write one sentence about what you think of it now. How are the two sentences different?"

   Take a few pairs of sentences. Students usually notice that the first sentence is about events and feelings at the time, while the second one looks back and judges, jokes or explains. Tell students that true stories written by the people who lived them, called memoirs, work the same way: there is the young person in the story and the older writer telling it. Today they will learn four questions for reading true stories, watch you use them on a hard passage, use them with a partner, and then use them alone. The aim, which RI.7.10 sets for the end of the year, is to read true stories like these on their own, with help only on the hardest ones.

2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes

   Part 1: The four questions. Show Diagram 1 and hand it out as a bookmark. Then and Now: who is telling, when did it happen, and when was it written? Track It: what happened, in order? Notice the Craft: which details, comparisons, dialogue or jokes make it vivid, and what tone (the writer's attitude, such as joking, sad or calm) do the words set? Find the Point: what does the writer make of the experience?

   Part 2: The modeled passage. Read the context note aloud: Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) grew up on a farm in western Massachusetts and became a well-known essayist and editor; he wrote "The Gilded Age" (1873) with Mark Twain. Being a Boy (1877) is a book of memories of New England farm life in the 1830s and 1840s. Haying was the summer job of cutting grass and drying it into hay for the animals' winter feed. Words to know: scythe (a long curved blade on a handle, swung to cut grass); grindstone (a heavy stone wheel, turned with a crank, used to sharpen blades); unobtrusive (not easily noticed); "spreading" (shaking out the cut grass so it dries); hired man (a farm worker paid by the month); bear on (press down hard). Read Source 1 aloud once while students follow, then think aloud through the four questions.

   1If there is one thing more than another that hardens the lot of the farmer-boy it is the grindstone. Turning grindstones to grind scythes is one of those heroic but unobtrusive occupations for which one gets no credit. It is a hopeless kind of task, and, however faithfully the crank is turned, it is one that brings little reputation. There is a great deal of poetry about haying—I mean for those not engaged in it. One likes to hear the whetting of the scythes on a fresh morning and the response of the noisy bobolink, who always sits upon the fence and superintends the cutting of the dew-laden grass. There is a sort of music in the "swish" and a rhythm in the swing of the scythes in concert. The boy has not much time to attend to it, for it is lively business "spreading" after half a dozen men who have only to walk along and lay the grass low, while the boy has the whole hayfield on his hands. He has little time for the poetry of haying, as he struggles along, filling the air with the wet mass which he shakes over his head, and picking his way with short legs and bare feet amid the short and freshly cut stubble.

   2But if the scythes cut well and swing merrily it is due to the boy who turned the grindstone. Oh, it was nothing to do, just turn the grindstone a few minutes for this and that one before breakfast; any "hired man" was authorized to order the boy to turn the grindstone. How they did bear on, those great strapping fellows! Turn, turn, turn, what a weary go it was. For my part, I used to like a grindstone that "wabbled" a good deal on its axis, for when I turned it fast, it put the grinder on a lively lookout for cutting his hands, and entirely satisfied his desire that I should "turn faster." It was some sport to make the water fly and wet the grinder, suddenly starting up quickly and surprising him when I was turning very slowly. I used to wish sometimes that I could turn fast enough to make the stone fly into a dozen pieces. Steady turning is what the grinders like, and any boy who turns steadily, so as to give an even motion to the stone, will be much praised, and will be in demand. [...]

   • Then and Now: a grown man looking back

     Before the details: who is telling this, and from when?

     Result: The "I" is Warner as a grown man, remembering his boyhood. The past tense and "used to" show the looking back: "For my part, I used to like a grindstone that "wabbled" a good deal on its axis" (paragraph 2). Paragraph 1 speaks of "the farmer-boy" in general, in the present tense, as if every farm boy lived this. The boy did the work; the man makes jokes about it.

   • Track It: the work of a haying day

     What happens, in order? Say it in plain words.

     Result: Before breakfast, the boy turns the grindstone while the hired men sharpen their scythes. Then the men mow the grass, and the boy runs behind them "spreading" it to dry: "half a dozen men who have only to walk along and lay the grass low, while the boy has the whole hayfield on his hands" (paragraph 1). A sentence like this is long, so find who does what: the men cut; the boy spreads.

   • Notice the Craft: saying the opposite

     Warner writes, "Oh, it was nothing to do, just turn the grindstone a few minutes for this and that one before breakfast." Does he mean it?

     Result: No. This is irony: saying the opposite of what you mean. Two sentences later he writes "Turn, turn, turn, what a weary go it was." The repeated word makes you feel the endless turning. The dash joke in paragraph 1 works the same way: "There is a great deal of poetry about haying" is followed by "I mean for those not engaged in it."

   • Find the Point: who gets the credit?

     Which sentence says what the experience meant to Warner?

     Result: The first sentence of paragraph 2: "But if the scythes cut well and swing merrily it is due to the boy who turned the grindstone." The word "But" turns from the music of the mowing to the boy nobody thanks, which paragraph 1 set up with "heroic but unobtrusive occupations for which one gets no credit." The point: the hard, unseen work of a boy makes the admired work possible.

   Teacher tip. Say out loud where the passage is hard and why: old words ("scythe," "strapping"), long sentences, a farm world students have not seen, and jokes that depend on noticing that the writer means the opposite. This passage sits near the high end of the grades 6-8 band, which is why it gets the most support in the lesson. Show students that you slow down, reread and use the four questions, and that skipping a word is fine when the point does not depend on it.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Give pairs this context note and the bookmark with the prompts below, but only a few words to know: Hamlin Garland (1860-1940) grew up on farms in Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota. His father, Richard, joined the Union army in 1863 and fought in the Civil War until it ended in 1865, when Hamlin was almost five. In the paragraph before this passage, the family sees a soldier walking past on the road and hurries after him. Words to know: divine (here, figure out or guess); relate him to (connect him with); of her own motion (on her own, without being told). Pairs answer each prompt, then compare with another pair. Circulate and hear from each pair at least once.

   1We did not overtake the soldier, that is evident, for my next vision is that of a blue-coated figure leaning upon the fence, studying with intent gaze our empty cottage. I cannot, even now, precisely divine why he stood thus, sadly contemplating his silent home,--but so it was. His knapsack lay at his feet, his musket was propped against a post on whose top a cat was dreaming, unmindful of the warrior and his folded hands.

   2He did not hear us until we were close upon him, and even after he turned, my mother hesitated, so thin, so hollow-eyed, so changed was he. "Richard, is that you?" she quaveringly asked.

   3His worn face lighted up. His arms rose. "Yes, Belle! Here I am," he answered.

   4Nevertheless though he took my mother in his arms, I could not relate him to the father I had heard so much about. To me he was only a strange man with big eyes and care-worn face. I did not recognize in him anything I had ever known, but my sister, who was two years older than I, went to his bosom of her own motion. She knew him, whilst I submitted to his caresses rather for the reason that my mother urged me forward than because of any affection I felt for him. Frank, however, would not even permit a kiss. The gaunt and grizzled stranger terrified him.

   5"Come here, my little man," my father said.--"My little man!" Across the space of half-a-century I can still hear the sad reproach in his voice. "Won't you come and see your poor old father when he comes home from the war?"

   6"My little man!" How significant that phrase seems to me now! The war had in very truth come between this patriot and his sons. I had forgotten him--the baby had never known him.

   1. Then and Now. Prompt: find two places where the grown-up Garland speaks from the time of writing. Teacher note: "I cannot, even now, precisely divine why he stood thus" (paragraph 1), "Across the space of half-a-century I can still hear the sad reproach in his voice" (paragraph 5) and "How significant that phrase seems to me now!" (paragraph 6). The events happened in 1865; the book came out in 1917, about fifty years later.
   2. Track It. Prompt: tell what happened at the fence in three or four plain sentences. Teacher note: the father stands at the fence looking at the empty house; the mother hardly knows him and asks, "Richard, is that you?"; the older sister runs to him, the narrator lets himself be hugged only because his mother urges him, and the baby, Frank, will not let him kiss him.
   3. Notice the Craft. Prompt: pick one detail that shows the father has changed, and one that shows home has not. Teacher note: "so thin, so hollow-eyed, so changed was he" repeats "so" three times, and the boy sees only "a strange man with big eyes and care-worn face." Home is unchanged: "a cat was dreaming, unmindful of the warrior." The calm cat next to the musket sets the soldier against the peaceful home.
   4. Find the Point. Prompt: which sentence says what the moment meant to the writer? Teacher note: "The war had in very truth come between this patriot and his sons" (paragraph 6). Ask pairs why the father's words "my little man" hurt him: his son treated him as a stranger.

   Close with a quick check: which question did your pair need most? Many pairs choose Then and Now, because Garland moves between the child's view and the grown man's without warning. Tell students that for the next passage they will get a two-sentence context note and the question names only.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Each student reads alone, with the bookmark showing only the four question names: no prompts and no words to know. Context note: Wilfred Grenfell (1865-1940), an English doctor, ran a hospital at St. Anthony in northern Newfoundland. In April 1908 he set out alone by dog team to reach a patient sixty miles away and took a shortcut across the frozen sea of a bay. Students mark each place they got stuck and what they did there, then write one sentence for each of the four questions. Collect the sentences; they show who is ready to read without support. The quiz uses this passage.

   1All went well till I was about a quarter of a mile from the landing-point. Then the wind suddenly fell, and I noticed that I was travelling over loose "sish," which was like porridge and probably many feet deep. By stabbing down, I could drive my whip-handle through the thin coating of young ice that was floating on it. The sish ice consists of the tiny fragments where the large pans have been pounding together on the heaving sea [...].

   2So quickly did the wind now come off shore, and so quickly did the packed "slob," relieved of the wind pressure, "run abroad," that already I could not see one pan larger than ten feet square; moreover, the ice was loosening so rapidly that I saw that retreat was absolutely impossible. Neither was there any way to get off the little pan I was surveying from.

   3There was not a moment to lose. I tore off my oilskins, threw myself on my hands and knees by the side of the komatik to give a larger base to hold, and shouted to my team to go ahead for the shore. Before we had gone twenty yards, the dogs got frightened, hesitated for a moment, and the komatik instantly sank into the slob. It was necessary then for the dogs to pull much harder, so that they now began to sink in also.

   4Earlier in the season the father of the very boy I was going to operate on had been drowned in this same way, his dogs tangling their traces around him in the slob. This flashed into my mind, and I managed to loosen my sheath-knife, scramble forward, find the traces in the water, and cut them, holding on to the leader's trace wound round my wrist.

   5Being in the water I could see no piece of ice that would bear anything up. But there was as it happened a piece of snow, frozen together like a large snowball, about twenty-five yards away, near where my leading dog, "Brin," was wallowing in the slob. Upon this he very shortly climbed, his long trace of ten fathoms almost reaching there before he went into the water.

   6This dog has weird black markings on his face, giving him the appearance of wearing a perpetual grin. After climbing out on the snow as if it were the most natural position in the world he deliberately shook the ice and water from his long coat, and then turned round to look for me. As he sat perched up there out of the water he seemed to be grinning with satisfaction. The other dogs were hopelessly bogged. Indeed, we were like flies in treacle.

5. Closure10 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Which of the four questions helped you most with Source 3? Copy the words where you used it. (2) Rate your reading of Source 3: "needed help," "used some support" or "read it on my own," and give one reason.

   Teacher note on the texts. The passages are quoted exactly as published in 1897, 1909, 1920 and 1928, with the writers' spellings and punctuation ("wabbled," "travelling," the doubled hyphens that stand for dashes). None of the printed passages contains a slur. Grenfell survived; in the rest of his short book, which is not printed here, he drifts overnight on the ice and kills three of his dogs so their skins can keep him from freezing, and he also uses an old word for a female dog that is now an insult. Preview those parts before assigning the whole book.

   For homework: students read the passage below on their own, with no bookmark, no context note and no words to know beyond its source line.

   1Transportation, in those days in Brooklyn, was by horse-cars, and the car-line on Smith Street nearest Edward's home ran to Coney Island. Just around the corner where Edward lived the cars stopped to water the horses on their long haul. The boy noticed that the men jumped from the open cars in summer, ran into the cigar-store before which the watering-trough was placed, and got a drink of water from the ice-cooler placed near the door. But that was not so easily possible for the women, and they, especially the children, were forced to take the long ride without a drink. It was this that he had in mind when he reserved his Saturday afternoon to "play ball."

   2Here was an opening, and Edward decided to fill it. He bought a shining new pail, screwed three hooks on the edge from which he hung three clean shimmering glasses, and one Saturday afternoon when a car stopped the boy leaped on, tactfully asked the conductor if he did not want a drink, and then proceeded to sell his water, cooled with ice, at a cent a glass to the passengers. A little experience showed that he exhausted a pail with every two cars, and each pail netted him thirty cents. Of course Sunday was a most profitable day; and after going to Sunday-school in the morning, he did a further Sabbath service for the rest of the day by refreshing tired mothers and thirsty children on the Coney Island cars--at a penny a glass!

   3But the profit of six dollars which Edward was now reaping in his newly found "bonanza" on Saturday and Sunday afternoons became apparent to other boys, and one Saturday the young ice-water boy found that he had a competitor; then two and soon three. Edward immediately met the challenge; he squeezed half a dozen lemons into each pail of water, added some sugar, tripled his charge, and continued his monopoly by selling "Lemonade, three cents a glass." Soon more passengers were asking for lemonade than for plain drinking-water!

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What does Grenfell notice when he is about a quarter of a mile from the landing-point (paragraph 1)?

   AHis dogs are too tired to pull the sled much farther BHe is on loose "sish" that is soft and may be very deep CThick fog has hidden the landing-point from his view DThe ice ahead of him is too rough and jagged to cross

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why can Grenfell not turn back (paragraph 2)?

   AHe has promised his patient's family that he will arrive that day BHis dogs will only run toward the shore and cannot be turned CThe wind is now blowing too hard in his face to go back DThe ice behind him is breaking up and drifting apart too fast

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Based on paragraph 3, what is a "komatik"?

   AA dog sled that carries the doctor and his gear BA small boat that can be dragged across the ice CA heavy waterproof coat worn over other clothes DA long sealskin boot that reaches to the thigh

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why does Grenfell cut the traces (paragraph 4)?

   ATo lighten the sled so that it would float on the slob BTo let the dogs run home and bring back other people to help CTo avoid drowning as a man had drowned in the same way DTo stop the lead dog from pulling him away from the sled

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why does Grenfell keep "the leader's trace wound round my wrist" after cutting the others (paragraph 4)?

   ATo tie the sunken sled to himself so it would not be lost BTo stay tied to his lead dog, who might reach something solid CTo keep the lead dog from swimming off and leaving the team DTo use the strap later to make a flag that people might see

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What does Brin, the lead dog, climb onto (paragraph 5)?

   AA large, flat ice pan that could hold the whole team BThe top of the sled, which was still above the water CA rock near the shore, about twenty-five yards away DA lump of frozen snow, like a large snowball, near him

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What does Grenfell mean by "we were like flies in treacle" (paragraph 6)?

   AThey were stuck in something thick and could hardly move BThey were moving quickly toward the shore across the ice CThey were making a loud noise that someone might hear DThey were so small that no one on land could see them

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   How does Grenfell describe Brin in paragraph 6?

   AWith anger, because the dog has left the team behind BWith fear, because the dog's strange face frightens him CWith gentle humor, even though Grenfell is in danger DWith sadness, because the dog will not survive the day

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which sentence shows that Grenfell is writing after the events, not while they happen?

   A"Before we had gone twenty yards, the dogs got frightened." B"This dog has weird black markings on his face." C"This flashed into my mind." D"I tore off my oilskins."

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Why does Grenfell tell about the drowning of his patient's father in the middle of the action (paragraph 4)?

    AIt shows that the danger was real and explains why he acted BIt explains why the patient needed an operation that week CIt shows that Grenfell had known the patient's father well DIt blames the dogs for causing the father's drowning

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which sentence best states the central idea of the passage?

    ADog sledding across the sea ice is a fast and joyful way to travel in the spring BDoctors in Newfoundland should never travel alone on the ice in April CLead dogs are wiser than people and always find the way to safety DLoosening sea ice puts Grenfell in sudden danger, and he acts fast to survive

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Why does Grenfell end paragraph 1 with the sentence that begins "The sish ice consists of the tiny fragments"?

    ATo show how afraid he was when the ice began to move BTo tell readers exactly where he was on his route that day CTo explain a word that most of his readers would not know DTo describe the weather that had changed during the night

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Based on paragraphs 2, 3 and 5, what is "slob"?

    AA slushy mix of broken ice and cold sea water BA strong wind that blows off the shore in spring CA deep hole in the ice where seals come up to breathe DA thick crust of new ice that can carry a man's weight

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which detail best shows how quickly the ice around Grenfell has broken up?

    A"All went well till I was about a quarter of a mile from the landing-point." B"I could not see one pan larger than ten feet square" C"the dogs got frightened, hesitated for a moment" D"I could drive my whip-handle through the thin coating"

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write an objective summary of Source 3 in three or four sentences: the main events in order, with no opinions.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Find two words or phrases in paragraph 3 that show how fast things happened, and explain how they affect the reader.

    Show model answer

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Grenfell compares the sish to "porridge" (paragraph 1). Explain what this comparison helps a reader picture, and why that matters for what happens next.

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Paragraph 4 begins "Earlier in the season." How is this paragraph different in time from the rest of the passage, and why might Grenfell put it here?

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    In this passage, Grenfell reports what he did much more than how he felt. Find one place where he could have described fear but reports an action instead, and explain the effect on the reader.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Using paragraphs 4-6, predict what Grenfell will try next, and explain which details lead you to that prediction.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to RI.7.10: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.