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Middle School-Language Arts |
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Middle School-Language Arts |
Model Passage One
The hands of the alarm clock on the table in front of Mr. Crangle stood at 3:47, on a summer afternoon.
"You're wrong about that, you know," he said, not taking his eyes from the face of the clock. "You're quite wrong, Pet, as I have explained to you often enough before. The moral angle presents no difficulties at all."
The parrot, in the cage hanging above him, cocked her head and looked down with a hard, cold, reptilian eye, an ancient eye, an eye older by age upon age than the human race.
She said, "Nut."
| Clarifying: | What does "moral angle" mean? What is a "cold, reptilian eye"? What does all the description of the eye mean? |
| Make a Picture in Your Mind: | What image comes to your mind as you hear this being read? |
| Teacher-Like Questions: | Who is this story about? What do we know about him? |
| Summarizing: | What is the main idea of this passage? What is it mostly about? How do you know that? |
| Predicting: | What do you think the next part will be about? |
Mr. Crangle, his eye still on the clock, took a peanut from a cracker bowl at his elbow and held it above his head, to the bars of the cage. Pet clutched it in a leathery claw. The spring-steel muscles opened the horny beak. She clinched the peanut and crushed it, the sound mingling in the furnished room with the big-city sounds coming through the open window--cars honking, feet on the sidewalk, children calling to each other, a plane overhead like a contented industrious bee.
| Clarifying: | Are there any words or ideas you don't understand in this passage? |
| Make a picture in your mind: | Tell me what images and sounds came to your mind as I read this paragraph. |
| Teacher-Like Questions: | Why is Mr. Crangle looking at the clock? Where do you think Mr. Crangle lives? What other questions might you ask? |
| Summarizing: | What is the main idea of this paragraph? This part tells about Mr. Crangle feeding and talking to his parrot in an apartment in a city. |
| Predicting: | Who has Prediction Card #1? What do you think the author may tell us in the next paragraph? |
After the Model Passages
