Pioneers of the American West
Tracy Hutchens, Jennifer Lucas,
Cammie Mitchell, and Emily Pratt


Wagons West!

Author: Roy Gerrard

Fifth Grade (level 3 readers)

Page 1 - 16

Lesson Two

Discussion Director

As discussion director, your job is to form questions about what you read in this section of the 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 this part of 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

üHave group members predict what they think will happen in the next section of the book.

üHave group members describe how they would feel if their families suddenly decided to pack up and move to new land.


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 portion of the 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:

-For this particular book, be sure to point out the poetic writing style of the author and ask the members of your group why they feel the author included this style of writing in the book.How do you and your group members feel that this style of writing helps to add to the story?

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:


Summarizer

Your job is to be summarizer for the day.After reading this portion of the book, create a summary of what has happened up to this point in the book.In your summary, be sure to include major issues discussed in this section of the book and how each issue has played a role in the book this far.For this particular book, you might find it necessary to describe issues such as how the journey was started and the places traveled this far.Include in the summary the beginning (who the characters are, the time period, and where the story takes place), the middle (the plot up to this point and what happens to the characters), and the end (what has happened up till now) of this part of the book.


Artful Artist

As artful artist, your job for today is to develop a creative way to respond to the events and themes in the story.You are to draw a picture that illustrates what you liked best about the story.After finishing your picture, write about your drawing.Tell who or what your picture is about, where your picture takes place, when it is happening, and why you drew it.Do not tell the group what your drawing is, but let them guess how and why it goes with the story.

An example of events that you might choose to draw include:

·The pioneers packing their wagons to head west

·Buckskin Dan leading the pioneers across the river

·Pa shooting a buffalo for food

·Buckskin Dan meeting his Native American friends at Fort Laramie


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