Lesson 9: Reading Nonfiction Articles

Purpose

This lesson will give you practice in strategies to help you read and get meaning from nonfiction text. You will use nonfiction articles to practice skimming, understanding graphics, taking notes, and using context clues to pull meaning from the text. You will build on the skills you used in lesson 7 and lesson 8.

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What You Will Learn

After completing this lesson, you should be able to do the following:

1. Use skimming, analyzing graphics, and note-taking to understand nonfiction text.
2. Use active reading strategies to understand nonfiction text.
3. Define and identify adjectives and adverbs.
4. Define new vocabulary words.

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Reading Assignment

The discussion will instruct you when to complete each reading assignment.

Daybook of Critical Reading and Writing

• Unit 9: Reading Well, pages 141–154

Writers Express

• Understanding the Parts of Nonfiction Books, page 262
• Using Reading Strategies, pages 271–287
• Adjectives, pages 430–431
• Adverbs, pages 432–433

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Discussion

In this lesson, you will learn how to use strategies that will help you make sense of nonfiction text. You will learn the timesaving strategies of skimming, analyzing graphics, taking notes, and using context clues that will make reading nonfiction easier and help you remember what you read. Skimming is a quick reading of the text that will give you an overview of the main points that the author is trying to get across. Authors often use graphics (charts, graphs, pictures, etc.) to help the reader understand information. Learning to take notes efficiently for nonfiction articles can help you remember what you have read.

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Read and Practice

Skimming Can Tell You a Lot

In the reading from Top of the World on pages 142–144 in the Daybook, there are several words that may be new to you.

• transported
• altitude
• avalanche
• summit
• descent

As you read, find these words in the context of the reading and try to predict their meanings. You may also use a dictionary to help you, then check your answers.

Self-Check: Ask yourself the question below as you read. Once you have written your response, check your answer.

1. How do words in bold help find the main ideas?

Self-Check: In this section, you will be using the skills of prediction that you learned in an earlier lesson. You will predict what the main points are in this selection. Remember that when you predict something, you may find that your predictions are correct, or you may find that they are incorrect. For page 144, write your predictions with as much information as you can. Be sure to think back later about whether your predictions were correct. Share your predictions with your parent/teacher, then check your answers.

Take Time for Graphics

In “The Spirit of Reform” on pages 145–148, there are some words that may be new to you.

• piercing
• awakening
• reform
• abolish
• harshly

As you read, find these words in the context of the sentence and try to predict their meanings. You may also use a dictionary to help you before you check your answers.

This section of the lesson will be familiar to you, because it is about the Underground Railroad. Use what you learned in your earlier reading to help you make predictions and connections with this article. As you read, think about what you can learn by looking at the map, noticing the words in bold text, and reading the indented quote. All these elements provide information that is not included in the written text.

For page 148, when you are thinking about the other types of graphics that might be useful with this article, consider the purpose for each graphic and the type of information that it would provide that is not presented somewhere else. Think also about the importance of the placement of the graphic. Can you see how confusing it might be for a reader if the graphic were placed in the “wrong” place in the article? Share your thoughts and your work with your parent/teacher.

Note Taking: An Art

In Bill Nye the Science Guy on pages 149–151, there are several words that may be new to you.

• orbit
• untraceable
• astounding

As you read, find these words in the context of the sentence and try to predict their meanings. You may also use a dictionary before you check your answers.

When you take notes, it is important to remember that it is possible to write down too much information. When you write down almost everything you read, you don’t identify the important pieces of information. You will have difficulty remembering information, because you have not identified main ideas. On the other hand, when you write reminders to yourself, you probably write down only a few words. You should do the same thing when taking notes while reading. When you write yourself a reminder, you probably also use symbols. Since notes are for your use, you can use any symbols that make sense to you.

Here are some suggestions about ways to take notes:

1. Write reminders in a couple of words.
2. Use equal signs (=) or slashes (/) as symbols instead of words.
3. Make only one or two notes for each paragraph.
4. Pay a lot of attention to the topic sentence (main idea) of each paragraph.
5. Arrange or display your notes using a list or a web.

Most nonfiction paragraphs begin with the main idea in the topic sentence of the paragraph. This is a good place to begin to look for main ideas. When you write these down for yourself, you can use a list, web, or chart. You can also use the note-taking strategies from previous lessons in nonfiction reading.

Write your notes in your own words. Vocabulary terms that seem important should be written down exactly as they appear in the text, but you should always be sure that you know how they are used. When you write summaries, use only your notes so that you write down your ideas in your own words.

What Does It Mean?

For the reading from Matilda on pages 152–154, you will use context clues to help you discover the meaning of words that are new to you. You have been doing that all along in this course, but this part of the lesson will give you some additional practice and tips.

You do not necessarily need to know the exact dictionary definition to stay on track with your reading. You are using your prediction skills when you use the context of the sentence to help you figure out the meaning of a new word. It is important to go back to see if your predictions made sense. As a writer, you can help your readers understand the words you use by providing them with context clues in your sentences, too.

Self-Check: As you read this selection in the Daybook, you will notice words that have been underlined. Look at the words on either side of the underlined word and see if any of these give you clues to the meaning and use of the underlined word. These can be used as clues to help you make reading easier. Sometimes it is also valuable to identify the part of speech of the word. How is it being used in the sentence—as a noun, verb, or adjective? When you have answered some of these questions about the underlined words, check your answers.

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Self-Check Answers

Skimming Can Tell You a Lot

• transported: moved (something) from one place to another
• altitude: height above sea level
• avalanche: a mass of snow that slides down a mountain
• summit: the top of a mountain
• descent: going down from something

1. Bold text makes main ideas stand out; words in bold text are headings.

Predictions

• This article is probably about Mt. Everest.
• It is a big mountain.
• Mt. Everest is difficult and dangerous to climb.
• It takes a lot of preparation to climb mountains.

• piercing: penetrating
• awakening: to become conscious or aware
• reform: change
• abolish: to do away with
• harshly: in a non-gentle way

• orbit: the path taken around something
• untraceable: unable to be located
• astounding: hard to believe

• nimble: This word is an adjective. Matilda is also described in this sentence as “quick to learn.”
• gormless: This word describes the girl’s parents, who are also described as “wrapped up in their lives,” “silly,” and “didn’t notice their daughter.”
• hankering: This last word is a verb. It has to do with Matilda’s desire to get books, because she loves them.

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Skill Lessons

Adjectives

Using adjectives adds detail to your writing. An adjective tells something about a noun or pronoun and often answers one of the following questions:

• Which?
• What kind of?
• How many?

Look at the following sentence:

Astronauts put on helmets.

This sentence is not very descriptive. What if you change the sentence to the one below?

Five confident astronauts put on the strong and shiny space helmets.

You have developed a much more vivid, or clear, sentence for your reader. Notice the underlined words in the last sentence. These are adjectives. They answer the questions “which?” “what kind of?” and “how many?” for the nouns “astronauts” and “helmets.”

When you are trying to locate adjectives in sentences, find the nouns and then ask yourself these questions:

Which  ____________?
What kind of  __________?
How many  ____________?

You will notice that the word “the” is also underlined in the sample sentence. “A,” “an,” and “the” are special types of adjectives called articles. The article “a” is used before words that begin with consonants (all of the letters of the alphabet other than a, e, i, o, and u, which are vowels.) Use the article “an” when the next word begins with a vowel. See page 430 in Writers Express.

Remember that adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. It doesn’t matter where the nouns or pronouns appear in a sentence. For practice, write sentences using each of the nouns and pronouns below. Try putting the words in different places in the sentence. You can also play with using multiple nouns in your sentences.

exercise
she
children
teacher
chalkboard
we

For example, you could use the word “exercise” in various positions in a sentence, as shown below. (Be careful not to use “exercise” as a verb in your sentence.)

Exercise is a part of life.
We get exercise at recess.

Once you have your sentences written, add adjectives to make the sentence more descriptive. Tell “which,” “what kind of,” and “how many.” For example:

Daily exercise is an important part of your life.

Notice that there are more nouns in the sentence than just “exercise.” (They are in bold print.) The example above added adjectives for those nouns as well.

NOTE: You will notice that the word “exercise” is being used as a noun in the sentences above. But you might easily use “exercise” as a verb. Almost any word can work in almost any way in a sentence. You must always look at the word in the context of the sentence in order to know how the word is being used.

VERB: We exercise each day at school.
ADJECTIVE: I enjoy riding my exercise bike.
NOUN: The exercise I enjoy most is walking.

Try some sentences of your own, and share your sentences with your parent/teacher. You might want to underline your adjectives so that you can go back and check yourself by asking if the words you added tell “which,” “what kind of,” or “how many” about the noun or pronoun.

Adjectives do different jobs in different sentences. The adjectives in the sentences above are called positive adjectives. These are adjectives that describe a noun without comparing it to something else. When an adjective compares two people, places, things, or ideas, we call it a comparative adjective. Comparing items in sentences is like telling about the noun’s or pronoun’s similarities or differences. When you want to use adjectives to compare, you sometimes have to change the spelling. When you compare two nouns, use the ending “-er.” When you compare three or more nouns, use the ending “-est.”

Most of the time, you can pick out the appropriate adjective, because using anything else sounds funny. Think of these two sentences:

Kansas is flatter than Arizona.
Kansas is flattest than Arizona.

The second sentence sounds funny, because an adjective ending in “-est” is used to compare more than two things.

Kansas is the flattest of the Midwestern states.

Here you use “flattest,” because you are comparing Kansas to more than one other state. Adjectives that compare three or more people, places, things, or ideas are called superlative adjectives.

Write three sentences that compare two things, using comparative adjectives. Share your sentences with your parent/teacher. You can also check pages 430–431 in Writers Express, if you need to review comparative adjectives.

Sometimes the spelling of comparative or superlative adjectives must change in other ways. When an adjective ends in a “y,” you must change that “y” to “i” before adding “-er” or “-est.”

dry       drier       driest

Think of three other adjectives that end in “y” and spell the comparative and superlative adjective forms correctly. Share your work with your parent/teacher. (You could use “funny,” “happy,” and “early,” if you get stuck.)

Sometimes you must use a different method of creating comparative or superlative adjectives. If the adjective has more than two syllables, it would usually sound funny to add “-er” or “-est.” For example, you would not say “excitinger” or “excitingest.” You would use the words “more” or “most” in front of “exciting.” (Sometimes you must do the same thing for adjectives that have two syllables.)

NOTE: A syllable is how we divide words into their parts, based on how we say the words. “Thrilling” and “funny” both have two syllables (“thril ling,” “fun ny”). “Exciting” has three syllables (“ex cit ing”).

Sometimes, you have to change the word completely when you compare. These adjectives are called irregular adjectives. Several examples are listed in Writers Express on page 431.

Identify the adjectives in each sentence and type them into the box. Share your answers with your parent/teacher, then check your answers.

Identify and correct the problem adjectives in the following sentences. Type the incorrect adjective(s) into box a and the correct adjective into box b. Share your work with your parent/teacher, then check your answers.

Adverbs

You have already learned about the part of speech we call verbs. In order to make action verbs really stand out, you may use another part of speech known as adverbs. Adverbs do for verbs what adjectives do for nouns—they make verbs more descriptive and your writing more vivid. An adverb describes (or modifies) a verb. Adverbs answer the questions:

• How?
• When?
• Where?

Very often, adverbs end in the suffix “-ly.” These words are commonly used as adverbs: “gladly,” “slowly,” “suddenly,” “quietly.” Other common adverbs include “always,” “often,” “lately,” “never,” “now,” “today,” “well,” “badly,” “fast.” Do you see how these words can answer the questions of “how,” “when,” and “where” some action is taking place?

Use each of the adverbs listed in the paragraph above in sentences of your own. Identify the verb in each sentence. For example:

Marta slowly trudged down the hallway to her room.

The verb is “trudged” and the adverb is “slowly,” which tells how Marta trudged. Once you have written sentences, share your work with your parent/teacher.

Very often, adverbs come right before the verb, just as adjectives usually come right before the noun in a sentence. However, that is not always the case, as in this sentence from page 432 in Writers Express:

The softball team practices faithfully.

How does the softball team practice? Faithfully. “Faithfully” is an adverb.

Just like adjectives, there are comparative and superlative adverbs as well. Comparative adverbs are formed by adding “-er” to one-syllable adverbs:

She works harder on her assignments than her sister does.

For multi-syllable adverbs, you would add the word “more” or “less”:

She works more diligently than her sister does.

Superlative adverbs are formed by adding “-est” to one-syllable adverbs:

She swam fastest of all the swimmers in the meet.

For multi-syllable adverbs, you would add the word “most” or “least”:

She galloped most quickly of all the riders.

These are pretty much a matter of common sense, and you shouldn’t have much trouble, but pages 432–433 in Writers Express can help you. For words that you are uncertain about, you can look up their forms in a dictionary.

You will need to memorize some words, so you don’t use them incorrectly. “Well” is usually an adverb telling how something is done or how someone is feeling. “Good” is an adjective describing a noun. Don’t confuse these two word categories. When using the words “well” and “badly” in comparative and superlative forms, use the chart below to help you.

Memorize these words, because they are exceptions to the rule. (Have you noticed that there always seem to be “exceptions” to rules in English? That’s often because our language comes from many different sources. But it does make learning grammar interesting, doesn’t it?)

Try writing several sentences using these irregular adverbs. Remember that almost any word can be used in different ways in a sentence. The sentences below use the words as adverbs that modify verbs. I have put the verb in bold type to help you identify it.

She worked (well, badly) on that assignment.
Arl sounded (better, worse) on that piece than I did.
Mika rode (best, worst) through the course.

Adverbs can sometimes modify other adverbs. In this case, they answer the questions “to what extent?” For example:

I almost totally forgot to go to my babysitting job.

“Totally” is an adverb modifying the verb “forgot.” “Almost” is also an adverb; it tells to what extent about the adverb “totally.”

Type the adverbs in the following sentences into the text boxes, then check your answers.

You should now take the lesson 9 progress evaluation.

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Self-Check Answers

Self-Check: Adjectives

1. Amy played on the seventh-grade soccer team.
2. Steve played first cornet in the school jazz band.
3. On Friday night, his parents said he could pitch his pup tent in the nearby woods for the entire weekend.
4. That night, they ran an extension cord from the nearby house.
5. Shelly and her best friends decided to sleep in the cozy camper tent instead of a drafty pup tent.

6. 1. gooder
   2. better
7. 1. most baddest
   2. worst
8. 1. most least
   2. least
9. 1. shyest
   2. shiest
10. 1. grouchyer
    2. grouchier
11. 1. exhaustingest
    2. most exhausting
12. 1. more wild
    2. wilder
13. 1. funnyest
    2. funniest
14. 1. a unfortunate
    2. an unfortunate
15. 1. best
    2. better

Self-Check: Adverbs

1. We went there today.
2. Rena practices her piano piece every day.
3. There is my folder!
4. Brilliantly, Thomas spelled the final word.
5. I could scarcely contain my excitement.
6. The bloodhound lazily stretched and yawned.
7. Come here!
8. I had a bad headache yesterday. (Note: “Bad” is not an adverb because it modifies the noun “headache.”)
9. Evan leaned forward.
10. The deer ran away quickly.

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Progress Evaluation

You should now complete the lesson 9 progress evaluation. Be sure to reread the general requirements for progress evaluations from the overview.

This progress evaluation consists of 25 multiple-choice questions worth 1 point each for a total possible of 25 points. Remember to mark your answers on a printed copy of the progress evaluation preview so you have a record of them. (Select “Lesson 9” to preview this progress evaluation.) When you finish filling in and checking your answers on a copy of the progress evaluation preview, click on “Submit a Lesson” in the Utilities box below for the actual lesson submission page.

Note: Progress evaluations must be submitted in sequence, and you cannot submit more than three progress evaluations in a seven-day period.

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