Text Type: Nonfiction/Historical
Page Count: 20
Word Count: 1,473

Book Summary
Mysteries of the Lost Civilization is a book about the Greek island of Crete and its rich history. It describes the first civilization that inhabited the island, what the island was like, and how the Minoan people became so successful there. It also describes theories on how the powerful Minoan civilization disappeared and why its disappearance has remained such a mystery. The text includes a rich variety of geographic, economic, cultural, and historical information. Photographs, maps, and illustrations support the text.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Summarize

Objectives

• Identify the main idea and supporting details
• Use the reading strategy of summarizing to understand the text
• Understand and use possessive nouns
• Understand how to read pronunciations in parentheses

Materials

• Book -- Mysteries of the Lost Civilization (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• World map
• Main idea and details/summary, possessive nouns, pronunciation worksheets

    Indicates an opportunity for student to mark in the book. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are reusable.)

Vocabulary

• Content words: Aegean Sea, Atlantis, caldera, civilization, collapsed, descended, disaster, eruption, evidence, fictional, frescoes, Greece, Homer, invaded, Mediterranean Sea, Minoan, Mycenaeans, mystery, philosopher, Plato, pressure, researchers, Thera, theory, tsunami, Turkey, volcano

Build Background

• Show students a world map. Write the words Greece and Crete on the board. Ask a volunteer to identify the location of Greece on the map. Ask another volunteer to come to the map and locate the small island of Crete south of Greece. Invite students to share information they know about Crete.
• Ask students to explain the meaning of the word mystery. Explain that a civilization once existed on Crete and then suddenly disappeared. Because it cannot be determined how it happened, Crete's disappearance is a mystery. Invite students to explain how Crete might have disappeared.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students their copy of the book. Guide them to the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers. Encourage them to offer ideas as to what type of book it is and what it might be about.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name).

Introduce the Comprehension Skill: Main idea and details

• Write the following list of words on the board: March, November, April, July. Ask students to describe what these words refer to (months of the year). Point out that the description of these words is the main idea and the words are the details that support the main idea.
• Explain that sometimes the amount of information about a topic is so large that it is grouped into chapters, and each chapter has its own main idea.
• Read pages 4 and 5 aloud to students. Model identifying the main idea and details.
  Think-aloud: As I read the chapter, most of the sentences mention something about the island of Crete, which is part of Greece. I think this chapter is about Crete. I will underline this information. The sentences also mention how Crete was once its own nation with a great civilization, which mysteriously disappeared. I will underline this information. Based on what I've read, I think the main idea of the chapter is: The history of the civilization on Crete is a mystery.
• Write the main idea on the board. Ask students to identify the details from the book that support this main idea (the Minoan civilization used to live on Crete, Crete used to be its own nation, the civilization suddenly disappeared, and so on).

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Summarize

• Explain that one way to understand and remember information in a book is to write a summary, or a brief overview of the most important information in the text. Point out that a summary includes the main idea and one or two supporting details. It often answers the questions who, when, where, what, and why.
• Model summarizing the main idea and details from chapter one on the board.
  Think-aloud: To summarize, I decide which information affects the meaning or outcome of the chapter that would be important to remember. To do this, I can identify the main idea and important details, and then organize that information into a few sentences. When I look at the main idea and details on the board, a summary of this chapter might be: The history of the civilization on Crete is a mystery. A long time ago, a civilization called the Minoans lived as a nation on the island of Crete. The civilization suddenly disappeared, and how it happened is a mystery. Today Crete is a part of Greece.
• Write the summary on the board. Have students identify the main idea and details within the summary. Discuss how you used your own words to create the summary.
• As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Introduce the following words from the content vocabulary, and write them on the board: Aegean Sea, Greece, Mediterranean Sea, and Turkey.
• Ask students to tell which of the content words name bodies of water (Aegean Sea, Mediterranean Sea) and which name areas of land (Greece, Turkey). Give groups of students a copy of a world map. Have them find the locations of the four content words, coloring the two bodies of water blue and the two areas of land green.
• Review that the index contains a list of vocabulary words, along with the page number on which each word can be found. Have students turn to the index and identify the page numbers on which they can read about the Aegean Sea. Have students turn to pages 4 and 12 and read the information about the Aegean Sea.
• Repeat the above exercise for the remaining three vocabulary words. Discuss each word with students. Use the index and the sentences, map, and photographs in the book to provide further understanding of each word.
• Write the following vocabulary words on the board: researchers, eruption, invaded. Review that the glossary also contains a list of vocabulary words, along with their definitions and the page number on which each word is first used. Have students turn to the glossary, and ask a volunteer to read aloud the definition for researchers.
• Remind students that they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentences in which they occur. Have students follow along as you read the second sentence on page 6 to confirm the meaning of researchers. Repeat the process with the remaining vocabulary words.
• For additional tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to find more about the mysteries of the civilization on Crete. Remind them to underline important information, or details, in each chapter and to use that information to identify a main idea.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 7. Encourage those who finish before others to reread the text. When students are ready, discuss the important details they identified.
• Model identifying the main idea and details.
  Think-aloud: As I read the chapter, most of the sentences mentioned something about the first people in Crete called the Minoans. However, I also read a lot about what researchers believe about this civilization. I will underline this information. The sentences also mention about how researchers believe the Minoan civilization grew based on what they learned. I will underline this information. Based on what I've read, I think the main idea of the chapter is: Researchers have theories about the first people in Crete, the Minoan civilization.
• Write the main idea on the board. Ask students to identify details that support this main idea (researchers believe that the first people in Crete had to use ships to settle there, grew olives and grapes and raised sheep, and so on). Write these details on the board.
• Review how to create a summary from the main idea and details. Refer back to the summary created during the introduction to the skill. Discuss and create the summary as a class and write it on the board. (Researchers have theories about the first people in Crete, the Minoan civilization. They believe that the Minoans were farmers and raised animals. They created goods to trade, which helped their civilization to grow.)
• Check for understanding: Have students read to the end of page 10. Invite them to share the important details they underlined in the chapter. Have students work with a partner to identify the main idea from these details. (The Minoans were believed to be an advanced civilization and culture.) Discuss their responses as a class and write a main idea on the board.
• Ask students to write a brief summary of the chapter on a separate piece of paper. Have them share what they wrote.
• Ask students to read the remainder of the book. Remind them to think about the important details in the book so they can summarize the information as they read.

    Have students make a question mark in their book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. Encourage them to use the strategies they have learned to read each word and figure out its meaning.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding skills and context clues.
• Discussion: Discuss how stopping to review the important details helped students remember the facts and better understand the information.
• Invite students to share the important details they underlined in chapters 4 and 5. Write these details on the board. Divide students into groups. Assign half of the groups chapter 4 and assign the other half chapter 5. Have each group work together to identify the main idea from the details and write this information on a separate piece of paper. (Chapter 4: The Minoans lived near Thera, the location of a huge volcanic eruption. Chapter 5: Researchers believe that Thera might have caused the Minoans to disappear.) Discuss their responses as a class.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students write the main idea and supporting details for one of the remaining chapters in the book on their main idea and details/summary worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Have students work in their group to write a summary for their chapter using the main idea and details they identified and discussed as a class. Discuss their responses as a class.
• Independent practice: Have students write a summary using the information from the remaining chapter on their main idea and details worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.
• Enduring understanding: Although the people of Crete built a strong, rich civilization, nature in the form of a volcano may have destroyed it. Now that you know this information, what does this tell you about the power of nature?

Grammar and Mechanics: Possessive nouns

• Write the following sentence on the board: The earthquakes before the eruption could have destroyed Crete's cities as well. Read the sentence aloud, pointing to the word cities. Ask a volunteer to explain whose cities the sentence is referring to (Crete's). Explain that the word Crete's shows that the cities belong to Crete.
• Review or explain that words like Crete's are called possessive nouns. A possessive noun is formed by adding an (') or an -'s to the end of a word to show ownership, or possession.
• Direct students to page 7. Have them find two possessive words on the page (people's and island's). Ask a volunteer to read aloud the sentence containing the possessive noun people's. Ask another volunteer to explain what belongs to the people (their ability). Have a volunteer read aloud the sentence with the possessive noun island's. Ask another volunteer to explain what belongs to the island (the forests).
• Explain that there are exceptions to the rule of adding -'s to a noun when creating a possessive noun. Write the following sentence on the board: The eruption of Thera may have played a part in the Minoans' disappearance.
• Circle the possessive noun (Minoans'). Explain that the word is not pronounced Minoans's, so only an apostrophe was added to create the possessive noun. (This is a general rule that applies to possessive nouns. Students should understand that exceptions to this rule exist.)
• Ask students what the Minoans have ownership of in the sentence on the board (their disappearance).
• Remind students that a contraction using 's is not the same as a possessive. For example, it's is a contraction for it is and does not show ownership.

    Check for understanding: Have students circle the possessive nouns in the book and underline the object of the possessive noun.

• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the possessive nouns worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Word Work: Pronunciation in parentheses

• Review or explain that pronunciation refers to how to articulate, or say, a word. Discuss how some words might be difficult to pronounce, such as words from another language. Point out that when authors anticipate difficulty with the pronunciation of certain words, they write the word's pronunciation within parentheses directly after the word. This helps readers to say the word and continue to read fluently through the text.
• Tell students that when writing the pronunciation for a word, the word is broken into syllables. Review that a syllable is a part of a word that is spoken with an uninterrupted sound of the voice. Words are broken into syllables by their sound, and each syllable has one vowel sound.
• Direct students to page 4. Ask them to find the pronunciation within parentheses (ih-JEE-uhn). Review or explain that when reading these broken syllables aloud, the syllable that is written in all capital letters is read with more emphasis. Point out that the first syllable is spelled out ih and not A because the vowel sounds like a short /i/, not a long or short /a/. Practice pronouncing the name Aegean with the class.
• Direct students to page 13. Ask them to find the pronunciations within parentheses (soo-NAH-mee, call-DARE-uh). Ask students which of the three syllables in the first word gets the emphasis (the second, NAH). Have students turn to a neighbor and practice pronouncing the word. Remind students to emphasize the syllables with capital letters. Repeat the process with the second word.
• Check for understanding: Have students turn to page 15 and identify the pronunciation given within parentheses (my-suh-NEE-unz). Ask how many syllables the word has (four). Ask which syllable gets the emphasis (the third syllable, NEE). Have students turn to a neighbor and practice pronouncing Mycenaeans. Listen to individual responses.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the pronunciation worksheet.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their book independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section of the book.

Home Connection

• Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Have students discuss with someone at home how to summarize as they read.

Writing and Art Connection

Have students reread the "Someone You Should Know" section on page 5. List names of notable people from Greek mythology, such as King Minos, Zeus, and Hera. Have students use the Internet to research Greek mythology. Have them choose a person from Greek mythology and write a brief paragraph explaining whom the person was, what he or she ruled, and what his or her powers were. If time allows, invite students to illustrate their work.

Science Connection

Discuss natural disasters, such as volcanoes and tsunamis, and how they continue to reshape the face of Earth. Talk about the unfortunate effects of these disasters, including loss of human life. Ask students to share their opinions about how Crete and Thera might have been affected by volcanic activity, earthquakes, and a 100-foot tsunami.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• identify the main idea and supporting details to better understand the text through discussion and on a worksheet
• accurately use main idea statements and supporting details to write a summary in their own words
• accurately identify possessive nouns in text during discussion and on a worksheet
• understand and read pronunciations in parentheses

Comprehension Checks

• Book Quiz
• Retelling Rubric