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 17 - 31

Lesson Three

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: 

ü 2 fact/opinion questions 

ü2 multiple choice/ end of grade questions 

ü1 problem solution question

üTalk about a theme that was presented in the story

What was the major conflict of the story and how did befriending the Indians help to solve the conflict


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:

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:

·Cunning- Page 23, paragraph 2

·Indignation- Page 23, paragraph 1

·Perspiration- Page 27, paragraph 1

·Triumphant- Page 25, paragraph 1


Travel Tracer

Today your job is travel tracer.You are to describe, or create, a map of the movement (travel) seen in this story.In this book, the characters move around a lot and the scene changes.It is important for everyone in your group to know where things happen and how the setting changes.So your job is to track where the action takes place during today’s reading.Please describe each setting in detail and give page numbers where the scenes are described.


Activity Activator

Your job for the day is to be activity activator.You are to design a graphic, or something creative, organizer to along with the story you read for today.This activity may get group members involved in expressing ideas or experiences learned in the reading.Your activity may include a K-W-L, Venn Diagram, character map, story map, or plot character to represent ideas you have learned.An example of an activity may be to do a K-W-L for pioneers or westward travels and presenting this to your group. 

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