Pioneers of the American West

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


A Fourth of July on the Plains

Author:Jean Van Leeuwen

Fifth Grade (level 3 readers)

Page 1 - 16

Lesson Four

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 discuss the impact that the July 4th celebration will have on the pioneers and how they think it will affect their quest for new land out west.


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:


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:


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 section of the 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 character for today is:Jesse


Connector

Your job for today is to be connector and connect the story with your own life.You are to think of ways personal experiences connect to events and themes appearing in the story.Using these connections you should be able to connect the book to the outside world.This means that you should ask yourself these questions and write a paragraph about one or more of them:

·Does this part of the story remind you of any other story or book you have read or heard?Explain.

·Does this part of the story remind you of anything that has happened to you, a friend, or a family member?Explain.

·Does this part of the story remind you of a movie or television show you have seen?Explain.

In your paragraph, be sure to include who or what your connection is about, where and when it happened, what happened, and how it connects or deals with the part of the story you were reading.

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