Reading Level
V

Word Count
3776

Pages:
14

Text Summary
The Lost Dutchman is a fictional story about two boys, Billy and Jacob, and their teacher, Mr. Martinez. The boys are learning about Arizona in the 1800s, and in particular the Gold Rush and a legend from that time. However, something goes funny, and the boys and their teacher end up searching for the gold from the legend. All is back to normal when Billy realizes he has just been daydreaming. Or has he?

Vocabulary
Content Words
ancient
binoculars
burro
canteen
cringe
emerge
exasperated
gila monster
hydrated
ideal
legendary
mesmerizing
portal
prospector
rearrange
ridge
skeptic
stash
tattered
theory
veer
wash
willingly
whittle

Reproducibles
Worksheets
Worksheet 1-comprehension story plan
Worksheet 2-putting it all together adjectives

Lesson Objectives

Comprehension
You will likely address a number of comprehension skills as children work to understand the text. The targeted comprehension strategy for this lesson is: Describe the setting, characters, theme, and story sequence.

Word Work

Parts of speech
Describe and use nouns.
Describe and use adjectives.

Before Reading

Introduce
Hand out the books and have the students read the title and scan the illustrations to make an initial prediction about the setting, characters or plot.

Ask: What do you think the book will be about? What information can you get form the illustrations about the setting, characters or plot.

Elicit Prior Knowledge and Build Background
Discuss gold mining and gold fever with students. Ask: What do you know about gold mining or gold fever?

Skim and Scan
Have students turn to the contents page.

Explain that a contents page shows where they might find information in particular chapters within the book. Have students read the chapter headings. Ask: What new information about the story can you get from the chapter headings?

Have students find the word Prospectors on page 2. Explain to students that the meaning of this word is in the glossary at the back. Ask: Where might we find the meaning of this word?

Have students find the glossary by looking up the page number in the contents page. Have them find the word and read the meaning from the glossary. Have students read the other words in the glossary

Ask: Are there any other words in the glossary you are unsure of?

During Reading

Set the Purpose
Introduce Worksheet 1.

Explain to students what the worksheet requires them to do.

Say: You will need to read the text The Legend of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine and then fill in the spaces on this Worksheet. It may be easier to read a chapter and fill in the area relating to that chapter as you go.

Explain to students what each part of the Worksheet means.

• Setting: The place where the story happens. In this case there are two settings.
• Characters: Who are the main characters in the story?
• Story sequence: What happened and when?
• Theme: The message the author was giving.

Hand out the books and have students read quietly at their own pace.

After Reading

Building Comprehension
Refer to the Story Plan Worksheet. Ask students to share their summaries of each section.

Ask students to restate facts and details in their own words.

Ask: What were the two settings?

Ask: Who were the main characters?

Ask; What was the story sequence?

Ask: What was the theme or author's message?

Word Work

Nouns
Explain to students that nouns are naming words. Use the following example from the book: road, page 10.

Ask: Can you find any other nouns in the story?

Adjectives
Explain to students that an adjective helps describe the noun. Use the following example from the book

bumpy, dirt (adjectives) road (noun)

Ask: Can you find any other adjectives in the story?

Introduce the second worksheet. Explain to students that it is related to the work just covered on nouns and adjectives.

Learning through Visual Devices
Have students look at page 7. Ask: Where is Weaver's Needle? What direction would you have to travel to get from Weaver's Needle to Phoenix?

Explain how students can figure out direction from the directions on the map. Point to the north side of the room. Have children stand up and face north. Now, have them face south. Do this with all the directions.

Explain that every map also has a distance key. Explain that if the room you are in were on a map, every foot could be represented in inches. A desk would only be a fraction of an inch. This means that in the map, the sizes are even smaller representations of larger objects.

If you'd like, you can have the class make their own maps of the neighborhood, playground, or school.

Writing Link
Taken form the worksheet - Putting it together

Have students write their own adventure story with Billy, Jacob and Mr. Martinez  

Assessment

• Review students' completed comprehension worksheet in order to assess whether they understood the reading.
• Have students write sentences or paragraphs using selected words from the vocabulary list, or word work examples from the lesson, in order to demonstrate their understanding of word meaning.
• Assess students' knowledge of nouns and adjectives.