Ice Story Online

Part of our class book is available online here.

Reading Guide for Excerpts from Survive the Savage Sea

Reading Guide for Excerpts from Survive the Savage Sea
You will read excerpts from the nonfiction book Survive the Savage Sea, as found in your Elements of Literature textbook.

1. Notice External Text Features for this story:
a. Text Boxes – First go to page 444 and read the information in the yellow box. It gives you background for the story. Notice also the text box on page 456.
b. Footnotes – There are small numbers after some words in the text. These direct you to look for the footnote at the bottom of the page. The footnotes for this story give you word definitions. Don’t ignore them. They’ll help you understand the story.
c. Headings -- Headings within the story let you know which day is being described. The Robertson family was lost at sea for thirty-eight days! The story of only five of the days is included in your textbook.
d. Photos and Illustrations -- Look at the pictures on page 445 and 450, and 452-453. How do the first two help you? The painting is symbolic and has to do with someone who died at sea. It is placed within these pages to set a mood rather than to share information. However, if we have time, I’ll tell you more about it.
See also the photo on page 457. This is a photo of the Robertsons as they are rescued.

2. Create your own “External Text Feature” before you read. Draw simple figures to represent the characters. You will draw six people. The text box on page 444 tells you who they are. By the way, Douglas is eighteen, and Robin (a young man) is twenty-two.

3. Students practiced using a reading log like the log they are using this time for their Book-of-the-Month Club books.

January 13/14, 2009

January 13/14, 2009
Self-starter: Students completed questions 1 and 2 on the Reading Guide for Survive the Savage Sea.


1. We read the collection of excerpts from the book Survive the Savage Sea found in our Elements of Literature textbook.
We focused on External Text Features in nonfiction.
What nonfiction is
Asking questions and looking for facts -- and figuring out where to find information and answers.
We practiced the process they will use for their own reading logs.

2. Students received information for the Book-of-the-Month assignment. Today they received the book approval and a reading log. The reading logs will not be due weekly, but should be kept as they read their books, and should be brought to class each time so they can be checked and so students can receive help and feedback.

3. We went to the media center so students could look for books that would be appropriate for the Book-of-the-Month project. Students should now where where to find biography/autobiography books in the media center, where to find nonfiction, how to locate historical fiction, and where to look for the call number for a book. They filled out an exit slip with two to three books they found that would work for the assignment.

Next Time: We will go to a computer lab to look at doing research and citing sources.