Text Type: Nonfiction/Informational
Page Count: 20
Word Count: 1,073 

Book Summary
Although everyone said it was unsinkable, the Titanic, the largest passenger ship ever built, did sink. In Titanic Treasure, readers learn how this great ship sank in 1912, who discovered its remains, and what people learned from the disaster that helped to improve ocean travel. Engaging historic photographs support the text.     

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Visualize

Objectives

• Use the reading strategy of visualizing to understand text
• Understand and identify cause-and-effect relationships
• Understand the use of serial commas
• Read and write a variety of numbers from text

Materials

• Book -- Titanic Treasure (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Visualize, cause and effect, serial commas, reading numbers 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: artifacts, bow, debris field, hull, maiden voyage, remote, salvagers, scuba dive, snorkel, sonar, stern, submersible, tidal pools, tragedy

Build Background

• Show students the front cover of the book. Explain that the photograph shows the underwater remains of the Titanic. Ask students to share what they already know about the Titanic. Write this information on the board.

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, author's name).
• Preview the table of contents on page 3. Remind students that the table of contents provides an overview of what the book is about. Ask students what they expect to read about in the book based on what they see in the table of contents. (Accept any answers students can justify.)

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Visualize

• Explain to students that good readers often visualize, or create pictures in their mind, while reading. Visualizing is based on the words used in the text and what a person already knows about a topic.
• Read page 4 aloud to students. Model how to visualize.
  Think-aloud: Whenever I read a book, I always pause after a few pages to create a picture in my mind of the information I've read. This helps me organize the important information and understand the ideas in the book. For example, on page 4, the author describes how the Titanic broke in two and then sank to the bottom of the ocean. I had a very emotional reaction to what I pictured in my mind. I pictured people frantically running on the deck of the ship, trying to get to lifeboats. I pictured debris falling all over the ship and into the ocean as the ship broke into two pieces. I pictured survivors with sad and desperate faces as they watched in horror as the ship sank under water. The people must have been terrified.
• Reread page 4 aloud to students, asking them to use the words in the story to visualize. Introduce and explain the visualize worksheet. Have students draw on the worksheet what they visualized from the text on page 4. Invite them to share their drawings. Point out to students that even though their images may not have been the same, they were each able to create a picture in their mind.
• 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 Comprehension Skill: Cause and effect

• Review or explain that a cause is an event that makes something happen, and the effect is what happens because of, or as a result of, the event. Create a two-column chart on the board with the headings Cause and Effect. Write the following sentence on the board under the heading Cause: It is very sunny and hot outside.
• Model identifying a series of cause-and-effect relationships.
  Think-aloud: If it is very sunny and hot outside, I know that I would wear clothing of a lighter weight and coloring to help stay cool. The hot and sunny weather would also cause me to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated. Wearing different types of clothing and drinking lots of water are two effects that happen because of the hot, sunny weather.
• Write each cause-and-effect relationship from the think-aloud on the board. Have students identify which part of the relationship is the cause and which is the effect.
• Ask students to identify additional effects of the hot and sunny weather (stay indoors, wear a hat, wear sunscreen, and so on). Write these relationships on the board.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Write each of the content vocabulary words found in the glossary on a large index card. Divide students into small groups. Have the groups rotate the cards and discuss and write what they know about each word's meaning on the back of its card. After the groups have rotated through all the words, discuss as a class what each group wrote.
• Ask students to turn to the glossary on pages 19 and 20. Review with them that the glossary contains a list of important (and perhaps unfamiliar) words from the text, a short definition of each word, and the page number on which it can be found. Remind students that these are the words they will find in boldfaced text in the book.
• Ask students to point to the word salvagers in the glossary. Ask a volunteer to read the definition and page number. Ask students to turn to page 15 and read the sentence in which the word appears. Compare the glossary definition to students' definition of the word. Ask students whether the definition in the glossary helped them to either understand the word or confirm what they thought it meant.
• Return to the glossary and continue reading the words and definitions. Compare each glossary definition with students' definition.
• For tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read to find out about the Titanic, stopping after each section to mentally visualize what they've read.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read from page 5 to the end of page 8. Encourage those who finish early to go back and reread. Have students draw what they visualized during one or more events of the story on their visualize worksheet.
• Model visualizing.
  Think-aloud: On page 7, I read how the Titanic scraped an iceberg, causing water to pour in. I pictured a gigantic hole in the side of the ship and thousand of gallons of water gushing in. I pictured the decks of the ship beginning to flood and people wading through the water to try to escape.
• Invite students to share their drawings of what they visualized while reading. Have them explain their drawings aloud. Explain to students that the photographs in the book, the book text, and past experiences help readers to visualize the events in a book.
• Create a cause-and-effect chain on the board. Write the Titanic struck an iceberg under the heading Cause. Ask students to use the text and think-aloud discussion to identify the effect of this cause. (Seawater poured into the ship, and the ship sank.) Write this information on the chart under the heading Effect.
• Introduce and explain the cause and effect worksheet. Ask students to write the information from the board on their worksheet. Have them identify and write on their worksheet a cause-and-effect relationship that happened as a result of people believing the Titanic was unsinkable. (Cause: People thought the Titanic was unsinkable; Effect: Few lifeboats were available, and many people died.)
• Check for understanding: Have students read to the end of page 15. Have them visualize the information in the text as they read. Ask students to draw what they visualized on their visualize worksheet. Invite students to share what they visualized.
• Write Robert Ballard was curious about the ocean under the Cause heading. Ask students to use the text and think-aloud discussion to identify the effect of this cause. (He studied to become an underwater explorer.) Write this information on the chart under the Effect heading.
• Have students identify and write on their worksheet a cause-and-effect relationship that happened as a result of advancements in technology and remote ocean exploration. (Cause: Advancements in technology allowed for more remote ocean exploration; Effect: Robert Ballard and his team were able to find the Titanic.)
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Encourage them to continue to visualize as they read the rest of the story. Remind them to continue thinking about the important events of the story 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 Reading Strategy

• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Think-aloud: When I read on page 14 about what the explorers found--everyday items such as shoes and a doll--it really made me picture the people who were on that ship. I pictured a child holding the doll. I pictured someone putting on a pair of shoes. Picturing these images made the sinking of the Titanic seem more real to me.
• Ask students to explain how the strategy of visualizing helped them understand the story.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the visualize worksheet. If time allows, have them share their drawings.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Discussion: Discuss with students the information on their cause and effect worksheet. Have them reread page 13. As they read, write the following under the Cause heading on the chart on the board: Robert and his team had Alvin, a submersible. Ask a volunteer to tell the effects of this. (The team could view the decks of the Titanic, record video of the wreckage, and learn more about what happened to the Titanic). Write this information under the Effect heading on the chart on the board.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the cause and effect worksheet by identifying one additional cause-and-effect relationship from the book. If time allows, discuss their responses.
• Enduring understanding: In this book, you learned about the tragedy of the Titanic and how lives could have been saved if the ship had been equipped with life boats. Now that you know this information, what is the benefit of studying and learning about tragic events in history?

Grammar and Mechanics: Serial commas

    Have students turn to page 8. Have students circle all the commas in the following sentence: But the water was too deep, too dark, and too cold. Point out each item separated by a comma.

• Explain to students that whenever items are listed together, commas called serial commas are used to separate each item in the list. Point out that listed items can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or entire phrases.
• Tell students that the last item in a list often is preceded by the word and, and a comma is placed before the word. Point out that this rule applies only when there are at least three items in the list.

    Have students turn to page 14. Ask them to identify the list in the first paragraph and circle the serial commas. Remind them that there can be other commas in a sentence, but serial commas separate a list of items.

• Check for understanding: Write the following words on the board: pencils, paper, notebooks, crayons. Have students use the words to write a sentence using serial commas on a separate piece of paper.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the serial commas worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Word Work: Numbers within text

• Direct students to page 14. Point out that when reading aloud, readers will sometimes encounter different symbols, numbers, and abbreviations within the text. Good readers read these parts of the text fluently, just as they read the words.
• Ask students to locate two numbers within the text on page 14 (1,900; 579). Write the numbers on the board. Review or explain that when reading the sentences aloud, the numbers are read in the same manner as the words. Explain that sometimes students will find numbers spelled out, such as six. At other times, they will find numbers written as numerals instead of letters, such as 6.
• Ask students to locate numbers within the text on page 6 (10, 1912, 14). Point out that the numbers on page 6 are dates), which are read differently from numbers (read, for example, nineteen twelve, not one thousand nine hundred twelve). Also point out that when reading the number of the day, it is read as an ordinal number (read, for example, tenth, not ten). Explain that good readers look for context clues to know whether a number should be read as a date. Write the corresponding words on the board under each number.

    Have students turn to page 7. Have them locate the three numbers within the text (2,200; 2:17; 1,500). Next to the numbers, have students write the word equivalents.

• Check for understanding: Have students practice reading the numbers within the book aloud fluently to a partner. When everyone has finished, ask volunteers to write the number and words for each number in the book on the board.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the reading numbers worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their book independently. Additionally, allow partners to take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

• Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Have students practice visualizing the story with someone at home and then comparing the pictures they created in their mind.

Informational Report Writing Connection
Have students use the Internet and library to locate information about Robert Ballard. Have them identify information about Ballard's early life, his education, and his accomplishments. Ask students to organize the information into a presentation format.

Social Studies Connection
Have students reread and reflect on page 15. Ask them to form an opinion about the following questions: Should the wreckage of the Titanic be preserved as a memorial to the people who died, or should people be able to explore and remove artifacts for museums? Invite students to state and defend their opinion.