Scott Foresman Reading Street

Reading Online

Examine features of
e-mail.
Compare and contrast across texts.

PREVIEW/USE TEXT FEATURES

As students preview "What Is a Weed?" have them identify who is asking for help and why. After they preview, ask:

What kind of information would you put in the "To:" box? (Someone's e-mail address)
How would you organize an e-mail letter? (Possible response: Just like you would a regular letter, with a salutation or greeting, the body of the letter in correct paragraph form, and a closing.)

Link to Science

Help students use reference materials such as encyclopedias or gardening books to help them identify weeds. Compare their samples to the pictures in the references to verify.

Whole Group Discuss the Question of the Day.

Group Time
Differentiated Instruction

"What Is a Weed?" See
pp. 174f–174g for the small
group lesson plan.

Reading

Language Arts
Use pp. 197e–197h and
197k–197m.

Whole Group Use pp. 197a
and 197j.

Grouping Options

NEW LITERACIES: E-MAIL

Use the sidebar on p. 194 to guide discussion.

E-mail, or electronic mail, lets you send letters to people all over the world, just like regular mail, only faster. Generally, when you click "Send," the person to whom you are sending the e-mail will have your letter within minutes. You can have their reply just as quickly!
Just like regular letters, e-mail letters follow a number of formats, from very formal to very informal. In this example, Francisco is writing a letter to someone he doesn't know to ask for his or her help.
Discuss with students what kind of response Francisco is likely to get such as a letter in response, links to Web sites, and so on.

AudioText

Francisco wants help telling the difference between weeds and flowers.

Access Content Point out specific terms which may be difficult for non-native English speakers, such as Chat, Cc, and Subject. Tell students what kind of information appears in the Cc and Subject fields.

At a gardening Web site, Francisco found a link labeled Contact Us, so he wrote an e-mail.

E-mail lets you
communicate with
people all over the world.

The letter e in e-mail stands for electronic. An e-mail is a message sent by computer over the Internet from one
user to another.

Genre

E-Mail

The e-mail address of the person you are writing to goes here.

Francisco and his abuelo got
in trouble because they pulled up
the wrong plants. "Tomorrow,"
Francisco told himself, "I will
be smarter! I will know a weed
from a flower!" That night,
Francisco went to a computer
and used e-mail to help him
learn about plants.

Find examples of weeds in your neighborhood. Bring them to class and use a resource to label them.

Link to Science

The message itself looks like the body of a letter.

The To: box shows to whom a message is going.

Text Features

Sometimes, you do not know to whom you are addressing your e-mail. In that case, use Dear Sir or Madam.

Dear Sir or Madam:

I got in trouble today. I had a job to weed a
garden, but I pulled out all the flowers and left all
the weeds! Help me! How can I tell the difference?
Thank you.

Francisco

What's the main idea of this message?

Main Idea

E-mail

Address Click once to get a screen that shows your personal address book, with the e-mail addresses of people you e-mail frequently.

Attach Click once to attach documents to your message.

Link Click once to get to a related site.

Send Click once to send your e-mail message.

E-mail

Tell students that in many ways e-mail is like regular mail, and there are rules of etiquette they should follow, especially when writing to people they don't know or who are in positions of respect, such as teachers or other adults.

Always address the person to whom you are writing with "Dear," just as in regular mail. For instance, "Dear Sir or Madam:" is the way Francisco addressed his e-mail.
Use correct paragraph form and indent the first line of each paragraph or double space between paragraphs.
Always use a proper closing.