1. Reading
Unit: 2 Lesson:1
Module: B
Objectives:
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text. RL.4.4
Identify key ideas and details in a story. RL.4.2
Today we will be doing a
Close Reading
Chapters 1-2
Essential Questions:
How do readers compare and contrast topics?
How does a writer use evidence to support ideas of compare and contrast in
an essay?

2. First Read Let’s explore the text!
Look at the illustrations and discuss what you think the book will be about?

3. Focus: What is the “gist” of the text?
Read Aloud Routine
Focus: What is the “gist” of the text?
I will begin reading The Birchbark House while you follow along in your book. Then, you will continue reading to the end of chapter 2, silently on your own. Focus on what the story is mainly about.
Be prepared to discuss the following questions when you are done with the reading:
• What details in the text describe why Old Tallow
was considered to have a strange personality?
• What evidence in the text helps explain why the
mother bear decided that Omakayas was not a threat?
• What questions do you have?

4. Second Read
When you reread The Birchbark House, focus on key details about the main character and events.
Be prepared to discuss the following questions when you are done
with the reading:
1. Why do the men go to the island? Why do they leave the young girl alone on
the island? This story’s genre is historical fiction and takes place in the Midwest
sometime in the 1800s, a time when Native Americans traded furs with white
settlers. How do you think the setting will impact what happens to the
characters?
2. Why does the author use Native American words in the dialogue?
3. What is a birchbark tree? How does the author show that the birchbark tree is
important to Omakayas’s family?
4. How would you describe the way Omakayas feels about Pinch?
5. What do context clues such as “killed” and “diseases” suggest about the meaning of smallpox?

5. Focused Reading Vocabulary Routine: Text-Based Vocabulary
courage, p. 2
shrewdly, p. 9
enigmatic, p. 10
fury, p. 16
abrupt, p. 22
Vocabulary Routine:
1. Read the sentence containing the word.
2. Identify context clues about its meaning within the passage.
3. Look up the word in a dictionary and read the definition.
4. Use the word in other ways.
*After we review these words, write your sentences on p. 124 in your Reader’s and Writer’s Journal.*

6. Text-Based Conversation
Focused Reading
Text-Based Conversation
The author describes the smells and sounds that the family experienced in the evening and as they slept. I can use these descriptions to figure out how Omakayas feels about her summer home.
Discuss the details on p. 12 and explain how they show Omakayas’s feelings about her home on the lake.

7. Use details from the text to support your answer.
Focused Reading
Team Talk Routine
Do you think that Omakayas wished she were back in her winter cabin when the storm passed through?
Use details from the text to support your answer.

8. Reading Analysis Describe Characters
An author describes a character by using many different types of information. This can include actual descriptions of the character’s appearance or feelings and thoughts, as well as the things a character says and does. It can also include the way that other characters act towards and
react to the character.

9. Reading Analysis Cite Text Evidence
Use a Web Diagram to record your ideas about Omakayas’s character. Use each bubble to describe the way a different character affects Omakayas.
Focus on pp. 9–11.
Describe how Omakayas feels about the other family members.
What does this family member do or say to Omakayas?
What does the interaction with this family member teach you about Omakayas?

10. Writing in Response to Reading
Independent Reading
Reading Analysis
Work independently to complete a Web that shows details about Omakayas’s interaction with the bears on pp. 26–32.
Writing in Response to Reading
Turn to page 125 in your Reader’s and Writer’s Journal and read the prompt: Do you think Omakayas was brave or foolish to talk to the mother bear the way that she did?

11. Small Groups It’s time to get into our groups!
Please see me if you don’t know what group you belong in.

12. Writing Objectives: Opinion Writing
Form and state an opinion based on analyzing text.
Capitalize titles correctly.

13. Writing Opinion Writing
Forming and stating opinions based on your reading of texts will help you develop critical thinking skills. In addition, you will be asked to write opinion pieces throughout your academic careers to demonstrate that you can read a text and express your thoughts and ideas using reasoning and text evidence.
People may have multiple viewpoints on a topic, and you must examine evidence in the text to determine which view is the most reasonable to you. Before you form and state an opinion about topics or texts, you should first make sure you understand the writing activity and then reread, reflect on, and analyze the text. As you reread and research (when called upon to do research), you should take careful and concise notes from sources and the text.

14. Writing Opinion Writing Reread the first paragraph on p. 15.
After the evidence has been gathered and examined closely, you should then determine your opinion, or view, on the topic. You should state your opinion clearly in a topic sentence and then follow it with reasons for why you think as you do. Each reason must be supported with details from the text.
Reread the first paragraph on p. 15.
Do you think Omakayas was right to try to escape
scraping the moose hide?
State your opinion and give one reason.
Use details from the text to support your reason.

15. Writing Analyze the Text
Use the following example of how a writer might form an opinion and support it with evidence.

16. Conventions Focus: Capitalize Titles Correctly
Writing
Conventions Focus: Capitalize Titles Correctly
Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are always capitalized. Articles, conjunctions, and prepositions are usually not capitalized unless they are the first word in the title, as with The Birchbark House.

17. think Old Tallow “made her deliveries at night.”
Writing
Independent Writing
Use your Reader’s and Writer’s Journal, p. 129, to write a paragraph in which you explain why you
think Old Tallow “made her deliveries at night.”
Be sure to:
reread and reflect on pp. 19–20.
take notes about Old Tallow’s personality and interactions with her community.
use details from the text to support your opinion.