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Close Reading Activity for “Big Rocks’ Balancing Acts”
1. What image does the first sentence create in your mind? Why does the author choose to begin the article
this way?
Richard Brune was pretty dizzy the first time he shot
photos while leaning out of a flying airplane.
2. Cite Richard Brune’s exact words and tell what effect the quotation has on the text.
And just in case he tumbled out of the plane, he wore a parachute. “It’s not that bad,” says Brune,
who has done plenty of skydiving. “From 1,000 feet you’ve probably got at least nine or 10
seconds [of falling] before you really have to pull the rip cord.”
3. How does the photograph and caption contribute to the text on p. 158?
4. The heading on p. 158 is ODD HOBBY. What do you expect to read about in this section, based on the
heading?
5. Identify the two causes and their effects in the paragraph.
In places that haven’t experienced large earthquakes, you
should find really delicate rocks—ones you could tip over with
a finger. But in places that have seen more serious quakes, the
only rocks left standing in the balance should be those that are
far harder to tip over.
6. Cite the signal word or phrase, and the cause-and-effect relationship it indicates.
Geologists find these rocks so interesting because they
could give clues about the severity of earthquakes, over
thousands of years. In parts of California, records collected
by scientists go back only about 150 years. Historical data
on tremor intensities are important when determining how
strong a bridge or dam needs to be to survive earthquakes.
7. Explain the cause-and-effect relationship.
Instead, scientists think these balanced rocks were
probably carved by water. As rivers cut gullies into the granite
bedrock beneath the desert floor, water chews away the
weaker types of rock, leaving only the stronger behind.
8. Cite the words and phrases that indicate the passage of time or the order of events.
Rood and Richard plan to test this age estimate. Late one
afternoon, a couple of days after their walk through the
marshmallow gully, they find a refrigerator-sized boulder that
looks ready to roll downhill.
9. Explain the cause and the two effects.
This rare form, called beryllium-10, is created when cosmic rays from space hit the rock and split
apart larger atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. You might say that when this happens, the rock is
getting sunburned. As long as the rock is sitting out in the open, the cosmic rays are hitting it and
beryllium-10 is forming in the outer 2 or so centimeters of the rock. But while the rock is buried
underground—before running water chews it out of the desert floor—it’s shaded from cosmic
rays, so no beryllium-10 develops.
10. Identify cause-and-effect in this paragraph by citing text.
Scientists have used exposure dating all over the world. Deserts, usually the oldest places, change
the slowest because there is little water to alter the landscape. Once a roc is standing, it can stay
sill for a long time because there is hardly any water to erode it or wash it away. And during the
winter, ice doesn’t form inside cracks in the rock and slowly pry it away.
11. Cite an example of a word that reveals the cause-and-effect structure. What is the central idea of this
paragraph, and how does the cited sentence support it?
Antarctica probably has the oldest, most unchanging landscapes on Earth. Ice covers most of the
continent, but a few small areas remain ice-free. In one such place, called the Olympus Range, you
can sit on boulders that haven’t moved in five or six million years! The rocks survived because
Antarctica is a desert: it is so cold that it receives hardly any rain or snow. The continent was once
warmer and wetter, but when it became cold and dry, it stayed that way.
12. What “less destructive” method has Richard found? What pattern of organization does the author use to
describe this method?
Richard has also found less destructive ways to pull on rocks. Out in the Mojave Desert with Rood,
he takes out a camera and begins photographing from all sides the refrigerator-sized boulder
they’re studying.
Back at home, he’ll load the photos into a computer that will stich the pictures into a threedimensional model of the rock—a virtual rock.
Richard can then run that virtual rock through a computer program that shakes and knocks the
rock down many times. By tipping that virtual rock they can ensure that the other one—the real
rock—has a fighting change to stay standing for another 18,000 years.