Integrate Two Nonfiction Passages About Mount Rushmore

Have your child read the passage once for the gist, then again to underline the facts each question needs. Read the short definition at the top of the question page together before they start. Check with the answer key, which lists the answers the passage supports.

Combine two texts on Mount Rushmore, carved from 1927 to 1941, and why the Lakota hold the land sacred. When you integrate two texts, you put facts from both of them together. You learn more than either text tells alone. The directions on the page read: Read Text A. Then, turn the page and read Text B. On page 2: Read Text B. Then, turn the page and answer the questions. On page 3: Use Text A and Text B. Fill in 1 to 6 in the chart. Then, circle the best answers to 7 and 8. Then, write your answer to 9. The answer key covers the questions on page 3.

Yes, both. We made it for 4th Grade paragraphs & passages, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with nonfiction passages. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

A nonfiction passage, also called informational text, gives true facts about a real topic, such as a person, a place, an animal or an event. Some sheets use an opinion article, letter or diary by a made-up writer, and each one is labeled made up on the page while the facts in it are real.

The five text structures are description, sequence (time order), compare and contrast, cause and effect, and problem and solution. The text structure sheets use four of them, with time order texts on the Golden Gate Bridge and the Eiffel Tower, compare and contrast texts on frogs and toads, cause and effect texts on the Model T and canned food, and problem and solution texts on lost pets and traffic jams. Clue words like first, both, because and to fix help students tell them apart.

A firsthand account is told by someone who was there, using words like I and we, and it shares what they saw and felt. A secondhand account is told by someone who was not there, such as an encyclopedia writer, and it usually gives more facts and numbers. On eight sheets students compare a made-up firsthand letter or diary, such as a visitor's letter from the first Ferris wheel in 1893, with an encyclopedia article about the same event.

Yes. All 82 sheets have an answer key. On the newer sheets, the key gives a model answer for every chart box and written item and lists other answers the passage supports.

The 62 newer nonfiction sheets have a passage of about 230 to 310 words on page one and 6 to 9 questions on the next page, with a chart, chain, timeline, table, map or bar graph to fill in or read. The firsthand account and paired text sheets add a second text on its own page, so they run three pages. The 40 earlier sheets, 20 nonfiction and 20 fiction, pair a passage of about 200 to 260 words with a page of multiple choice and short written questions.

The nonfiction sheets practice main idea and summarizing (RI.4.2), explaining events and steps (RI.4.3), text structure (RI.4.5), firsthand and secondhand accounts (RI.4.6), reading timelines, tables, maps and graphs (RI.4.7), reasons and evidence (RI.4.8) and combining two texts on one topic (RI.4.9). The fiction sheets practice theme, character feelings, inference and similes (RL.4.1, RL.4.2).

Have students read the passage once for the gist, then again with a pencil to underline clues. Then answer the questions and check against the key. Use a nonfiction passage one day and a story the next, so students practice both text types.

Yes. All 102 sheets include an answer key with the correct choices and sample written answers. The key keeps the same header and instructions as the student page so it is easy to match.