Next Spring an Oriole
Author:  Gloria Whelan
5th grade (level 3 readers)
Pages 5- 24

Discussion Director

    Today your job is to be the discussion director.  You will come up with questions that the group will discuss about this part of the book. Be sure to form questions about parts of the reading that you feel are important.  Be able to tell the group WHY you feel this way.   You will come up with:

Prediction

What do you think will happen in the next section?

Answer:  That the Mitchell family will start to bulid there house.  They will have some hard times before it gets built.  They will also meet new people who live near them.
 

Passage Picker

    Today your job is to be the Passage Picker.  You will pick important passages from the pages we have read.  You will tell the group why you feel this passage is important and help the group discuss it.  For this section choose 4 passages from the following reasons:

Make sure you include the page and paragraph number that your passages are found on.

Descriptive

Page 17 par 2 -- When Papa-like Papa's

This passage describes an Indian Man who comes up with Papa.  It tells exactly what he looked like.  It would be easy to draw a picuture of him after reading this description.

Name some of the things the Indian was wearing.

Answer:  Deerskin trousers, leggings, and a long shirt.  He had long black hair with feathers stuck in it.

Authors Purpose:  to describe
 

Character Sketcher

Today your job is character sketcher.  Your job is to find interesting traits about a character from this section of reading.  You will find 3 words that describe the character.  For each word, or trait, you will give the proof, or example (including page and paragraph). Next, you will tell one of your character's goals, or what the character wants to do in this section. Then you will find one of the character's problems in the section and tell the solution or possible solution to the problem. Finally, you will illustrate your character.

Your character today is:  Elizabeth

Traits and Proof

1)  p. 5-6
    nervous-  because she is moving to a new place and has to leave her friends behind.  She is also worried that she sill not like this new place and will be unhappy here.

2)  p. 20 par. 2
    caring- when the little Indian girl was sick with the measles and needed help from them.

3)  p. 22
    excited- because the Indian girl is getting better and her family showed them a trail to take to their new land where they would build a house.

Goal

Elizabeth's goal is to travel to her new home with her family, doing anything she can to help along the way. She wants to travel there safely and meet new people.

Problem

Her family meets and Indian man who has a daughter that is suffering from measles.  She is very sick.

Solution

Elizabeth's mom gives the girl medicine, feeds her, and takes care of her until she is well enough to return to her family.
 

Word Wizard

    Your job today is word wizard.  You will take the four words given and look them up in the reading.  Then look up the word in the dictionary. Using the context clues from the reading write down, in your own words, the definition of the word.  Write down the correct part of speech.  Next either write down a question and answer about the word for your group to answer or a sentence using your word wizard word.  Finally, make your Word Wizard card.

surveyor p. 5 par. 2
daft p. 9  par. 5
sluice p. 16 par. 2
pittance p. 21 par. 1

sluice
I was watching Papa sluice down the horses, but I hadn't seen the fond look he gave them or the gentleness in his hands.
verb
-- to wash or run water over
We must sluice the animals before we can go inside on this hot day.
 

Investigator

Your job today is investigator.  You dig up some background information on the houses pioneers built on the praire.  The idea is to find one bit of information or material that helps your group understand the book better.  Specific things to look for are:

1)  What were houses built of?
2)  Where were these houses located?
3)  Who helped build the houses?
4)  How are those houses different from ours today?

Ways to gather information:

Web sites that would be useful to this Investigator:

http://websteader.com/wbstdsd1.htm
This website shows houses that were built on the praire.  It gives details about how they were built and why.

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/5145/essayprairie.html
This website gives a personal account of what it was like to live in a sod house.  It gives a description of the house and how it changed a person's life when they moved away from the sod house.

http://webpages.marshall.edu/~irby1/laura/frames.html
This site is about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her life.  It has a special link about the houses she lived in throughout her life.  Descriptions and pictures are avaliable.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/expltx/eft/bison/history/eft_history1.htm
This site is about life on the prarie.  There are many examples and pictures to go along with the discussion.