Pushing Up the Sky
Advanced-Level Reader
Star Tracks
Unit 3 Week 2
AUTHOR’S PURPOSE SUMMARIZE
LESSON VOCABULARY astronomers, celestial navigation, constellation, dead reckoning, galaxy, latitude, light-year, quadrant, refractive, telescope
SUMMARY This nonfiction book gives students information about the constellations and celestial navigation. It provides a history of how sailors navigated by the stars and how this led to the invention of the telescope.
Students are also introduced to Galileo, Newton, and George Hale.
INTRODUCE THE BOOK
BUILD BACKGROUND Ask students if they have ever looked through a
telescope or seen any of the photographs from the Hubble telescope in a magazine. Then discuss with students if they have ever gotten lost and what signposts they looked for. Tell students that this book, in part, is about how
people navigate using the stars.
PREVIEW/USE ILLUSTRATIONS Suggest students skim the text and look
at the illustrations and captions. Ask students what clues these text
elements give them as to what this book might be about.
TEACH/REVIEW VOCABULARY Review the vocabulary words with students. To reinforce the meanings of the words, make a “vocabulary star map.” Create two five-pointed stars with a vocabulary word at each point. Have students write the meanings of the words along the lines of the star.
Give students a list of definitions and have them match the
definition with the correct vocabulary word.
TARGET SKILL AND STRATEGY
AUTHOR’S PURPOSE Remind students that the
author’s purpose is the reason an author writes a story. Invite students to discuss why they imagine
an author might write about the stars.
SUMMARIZE Remind students that
summarizing is retelling the main idea of a story in a few sentences. To gain practice, give students short paragraphs to summarize.
READ THE BOOK
Use the following questions to support comprehension.
PAGE 7 Why is the North Star so important for celestial navigation? (It is
always found by looking north.)
PAGES 10–11 Summarize how early explorers used the stars to navigate. (Early explorers depended on the sun and the stars. Then they used dead reckoning to measure their course.)
PAGE 13 Summarize why it’s difficult to depend on the quadrant to navigate.
(The North Star is sometimes hidden by clouds; the horizon can be difficult to
find in the dark; ocean waves make it difficult to hold a quadrant steady.)
TALK ABOUT THE BOOK
READER RESPONSE
- Possible response: The author’s purpose was to explain how important
stars are in the universe and what people have done to find out more
about them.
- Galileo built a powerful telescope. He proved Copernicus’s theory that the sun is the center of the universe. He used his telescope to learn more about the planets and the stars.
- Possible responses: television, telephone, telethon; sentences will vary.
- The picture shows that you need to place your eye up against the sextant in order to make it work.
RESPONSE OPTIONS
WRITING Imagine you are Galileo making a commercial trying to convince
people that the moon is bumpy. Describe the commercial.
CONTENT CONNECTIONS
SCIENCE/ART Hand out sheets of drawing paper with the dots for Orion and Leo drawn on them. Invite students to create their own constellation picture for these groups of stars.
L.R. TOC
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