Pioneers of the American West

Tracy Hutchens, Jennifer Lucas,
Cammie Mitchell, and Emily Pratt

The Floating House

Author: Scott Russell Sanders

Fifth Grade (level 3 readers)

LESSON ONE

Discussion Director

As discussion director, your job is to form questions about what you read in this book. You should evaluate the topics, or ideas, that you feel are important and create questions that stress this importance to the rest of the group. Be able to support your idea of why you feel it is important and encourage your group to think openly as to why this topic may be important to them as well. Remember to be creative and get students actively involved in discussing what they read in the book. In order to get your group involved, you should create questions to include the following:

ü2 fact/opinion questions

ü2 multiple choice/ end of grade questions

ü1 problem solution question

Passage Picker

Your job is to be passage picker for the day.You are to choose passages that you feel are important to what you have read in this book.You should be able to support why you chose these passages and why they are important to what you read.You will introduce each passage to the group by explaining its importance and meaning to the reader.Please remember to write down your passages as well as their page number and paragraph so you can easily come back to them.It will also help to record the first two words and last two words found in the passage and write what type of passage it is so that other students will find it easier to locate.Form questions about you passages that encourages others to look deeper into their meanings.For this book, you should choose four passages that include at least four of the following descriptions:

Personification
Informative
Historical
Interesting
Problem/solution

Word Wizard

Your job is to be word wizard for the day.You will be given a list of words that are found in the text and may be unfamiliar to other students in your group.You may use all four of these words or use some of the words given to you and choose other words in the text that you do not know.However, you must have a total of four words.You will read the word in the context it is written.You should write down the page number and paragraph that the word is written for future reference. Write the sentence that the word appears in and think about the word as it appears in the text.Write down what you think the word means and the part of speech that it serves in the story.Look up the word in the dictionary and write how it adds meaning to the story.Finally, make the word wizard card that contains all you have done.Words you should find for this book include:

Parcel- Page 27, paragraph 2
Tallow- Page 18, paragraph 1
Dismantled- Page 27, paragraph 2
Caulking- Page 18, paragraph 1

Character Sketcher

Your job is to be character sketcher for the day.You are to find traits about your character and use these traits to introduce your character to other students in your group.You will find three words, or traits, about your character.For each trait, or word, you will give proof that this trait fits your character by citing the page number and paragraph that you found this trait.You will then identify the characters goals, or what the character is planning to do in this book.You will also identify one of the characters problems in the book and tell the solution or possible solutions to the problem.Finally, you will illustrate the character, or characters to others in your group through a drawing.Remember that these traits may not be directly stated, but are often implied so look deep.

Your characters for today is:the McClure Family

Investigator

Your job is to examine various resources that have connections to the book that we have been reading, find valuable information from these resources, and share the information with others in your group. Today you are going to do further research into the ways that pioneers traveled to new settlements and some of the trials that they faced along the way.You will use the resources listed below to answer the list of questions concerning their travel and their journeys.In doing this activity you will share interesting facts that they you find that might make the story you have just read more meaningful.

Answer the following questions:

What is the name of the trail that pioneers used instead of waterways to travel westward?
Name the various landmarks that the pioneers used on the trail when traveling westward.
What mountain range proved to be a deadly threat to pioneers?
Name the doorway through the Rocky Mountains to the western half of the continent.
Who were the first to travel the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon and what was their purpose for traveling?
Name a few of the hardships faced by the pioneers when traveling westward.

Resources include:

·Encyclopiedias

·http://flms.ddouglas.k12.or.us/~ludwig/tag/thinkquest/Oregon_Trail/1trtr.html

·http://www.publicbookshelf.org/public_html/The_Great_Republic_By_the_Master_Historians_Vol_III/historyof_bc.html

·http://rwguide.rootsweb.com/syft/immigration/syftrm0177

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