Guiding Comprehension

Vocabulary • Context Clues

What is the meaning of the
word board on p. 73? What
is another meaning for board?

On p. 73, the board is a group of
people who decide something. It
can also mean a plank of wood.

then… use the vocabulary instruction on
p. 73.

If… students have difficulty figuring out
the meaning
of the word board on p. 73,

Context Clues

Character • Inferential

The author's father takes the
job as janitor because he'd be
cleaning rocks sometimes.
What does this tell you about
him?

That he really likes rocks.

Summarize When students finish reading the selection, provide this prompt: Imagine that you want to tell a friend what Rocks in His Head is about. In four or five sentences, explain its important points.

VOCABULARY STRATEGY

Context Clues

TEACH

Explain that sometimes when
we're reading, we'll come across a word we know that doesn't make sense in the sentence. Tell students that this is because words often have more than one meaning.
Very often, we can use the information in the text to help us figure out what the word means in this instance.
Try the new meaning in the
sentence. If it makes sense,
you have figured out a second
meaning to a word you
already knew.
Model using context clues to
figure out the meaning of the
word board on p. 73.

MODEL I came across the
word board while I was
reading the selection. I know a board is a plank of wood, like we use to build houses and things like that. But that doesn't make sense in this sentence, so it must have another meaning. If I read back over the selection, I see that Mrs. Johnson can't hire the author's father because "the board won't allow it." The board must be a person or a group of people. That makes sense.

PRACTICE AND ASSESS

Have students look through the text
and find one or two other examples
of words that have meanings different
from the meaning they know for that
word. To assess, have them use the
second meaning in the sentence to
see if it makes sense.

"Rocks in His Head"
by Carol Otis Hurst

Student Edition
Unit 4, pp. 64–74

A biography is the story of a real person's life, written by another person. Why might the author have decided to write a biography of this person?

Mr. Hurst, my father, was a collector. He didn't collect stamps or buttons. He collected rocks—all kinds of rocks. His interest in rocks began when he was a boy. By the time he was an adult, he had rocks of many colors and sizes. He knew the name of every rock and where each came from.
He used to tell people he had rocks in his head. Of course, this made them laugh. When people say that you have rocks in your head, they usually mean that you are not very smart. Mr. Hurst meant that he liked rocks a lot and knew a lot about them.
Rocks were just Mr. Hurst's hobby. For work he ran a gas station. He filled up gas tanks and repaired cars, using spare parts he kept in the station. He kept his rock collection at the station too. Every now and then, a customer would ask Mr. Hurst about the collection.
Business was good until the Great Depression. That was a time when many people lost their jobs. They did not have money to buy gas or fix cars. Mr. Hurst had to close his gas station.
He carefully packed his rocks and moved them to his home, where he put them in his attic. He went up there to look at them every day. Like others, Mr. Hurst had trouble finding work. There were very few jobs and very many people looking for work.
Sometimes he would spend the whole day at the science museum. He really liked the rock room. He met Mrs. Johnson, the head of the museum, there. When they talked, she found out that Mr. Hurst knew more about rocks than anyone else around. She asked the museum's board to hire him.
The board said that Mr. Hurst could not be hired as a rock scientist, or mineralogist, because he had not gone to college. And so Mrs. Johnson hired him as a night janitor. His chores included sweeping, cleaning, and dusting the rocks.
Then one day, Mrs. Johnson came into the museum and saw Mr. Hurst relabeling a rock. He told her it had been labeled incorrectly. Mrs. Johnson went to the board once again. This time she got them to agree to hire Mr. Hurst as the head of rock science.
She said that he was the best person for the job because he had rocks in his head.



	Close
	Careers There are many careers available to people with degrees in geology, or the study of earth science. One could go on to work in a museum, such as the author's father in the selection, but that is not all. There are jobs as engineers and researchers in forestry, mining, farming, and the oil and gas industry. Geologists work as archeologists, paleontologists, soil scientists, and even climatologists and atmospheric scientists.

"Rocks in His Head" by Carol Otis Hurst

"Rocks in His Head"
by Carol Otis Hurst