Scott Foresman Reading Street

Social Studies
in Reading

Examine features of expository nonfiction.
Practice a test-taking strategy.
Compare and contrast across texts.

PREVIEW/USE TEXT FEATURES

Have students preview the article's photographs, map, and facts. Then ask:

What can you learn about the parks from the facts listed by each park's name? (Date established, number of acres, what makes the park unique.)

Link to Social Studies

On a physical map, point out features that identify natural landforms. Have students use these features to draw conclusions about park activities.

EXPOSITORY NONFICTION

Use the sidebar on p. 258 to guide discussion.

Tell students expository nonfiction provides information about an idea. Have them focus on the photographs or dates.
Discuss how the photographs, map, and facts on p. 259 help students understand the information on p. 258.

AudioText

Partner Reading, 259a

Writing

Grammar

Fluency

Plural Possessive Nouns, 259f

Review Word List, 259j

Draft and Revise, 259h

Spelling

Fluency and Language Arts

GUIDED PRACTICE Have students discuss how they would use the strategy to answer the following question.

Which of the parks listed on p. 259 was established first?

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE After students answer the following test question, discuss the process they used to find information.

What are the highlights of Big Bend?

Use the Strategy

Read the test question and locate a key word or phrase.
Scan the graphic sources, looking for a picture or detail related to the key word or phrase.

USE GRAPHICS Explain to students that they can use graphic sources to help answer test questions. Provide the following strategy.

Strategies
for Nonfiction

Possible response: U.S. Presidents have set aside land for national parks.

CONNECT TEXT TO TEXT

Reading Across Texts

Be sure students can distinguish between the author's humorous examples of being President and the good things Presidents have accomplished.

Writing Across Texts Have students scan the selection for names of specific Presidents they want to write about.

     CALIFORNIA
     Established: 1890
     Size: 456,552 acres
Highlights: giant sequoia
trees; Mt. Whitney (14,491 feet)

Sequoia

KENTUCKY
   Established: 1941
   Size: 52,830 acres
   Highlight: world's longest
known network of caves

Mammoth Cave

Look at a physical map of
the United States. What
natural landforms do you
see? Choose a national
park and make a list of
the recreational
activities people might
enjoy there based on
landforms that are part
of the park.

Link to Social Studies

Photos and facts
provide details about
the parks.

Included in this brief
article is a map of the
United States. It
shows the locations
of five national parks.

Text Features

Maps are important, with
information being linked
to them in some way.

Expository nonfiction
often presents facts
and information in
visual ways.

Genre

Expository
Nonfiction

Visit one of the 55 parks in the
U.S. national park system. (A sampling
is on page 259.) Walk through caves,
climb mountains, and see wildlife, rain
forests, and glaciers. As you enjoy
these natural areas, remember that
U.S. Presidents helped protect them.

the world's first national park,
   Yellowstone National Park,
     in 1872. In 1864, Abraham
     Lincoln set aside land that
     became Yosemite National
   Park in 1890.

Did you know
that the President
of the United States
has the power to set
aside land for national parks?
Ulysses S. Grant helped create

by Susan Gavin

TEXAS
     Established: 1944
      Size: 801,163 acres
      Highlights: desert land; on the
     Rio Grande; dinosaur fossils

Big Bend

FLORIDA
Established: 1947
Size: 1,399,078 acres
Highlight: largest subtropical
wilderness in the United States

Everglades

  CALIFORNIA, NEVADA
   Established: 1994
   Size: 3,367,628 acres
  Highlights: largest national park
outside of Alaska; desert,
dunes, gorges

Death Valley

Writing Across Texts Make a list of three or four Presidents
and tell something they each did that was good for the country.

Reading Across Texts
"Our National Parks" tells that the President has the power to create
national parks. What are some other good things Presidents have done
that you read about in So You Want to Be President?

How would you state the main idea?

Main Idea

dunes	mounds or ridges of loose sand heaped up by the wind
gorges	deep, narrow valleys, usually steep and rocky, especially ones with a stream
fossils	the hardened remains or traces of things that lived in a former age

Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore National Memorial shows the faces of four U.S. Presidents carved in granite: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. The memorial, located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, is part of the National Park System. The memorial was designed by Gutzon Borglum. Work began in 1927 and, with lapses, was completed in 1941. It took about 6.5 years of actual labor, using drills and dynamite to cut into the granite cliff and then shaping and smoothing the surfaces. Today, about 2 million people visit the memorial each year.