Intermediate Guided Reading Lesson Plan
Title:
Genre:
India and China by William Caper; Benchmark; ISBN
978-1-4108-5112-3
Literacy Core Objective:
40060-07Standard VII: Comprehension Students understand, interpret, and
analyze narrative and informational grade level text.
Content Core Objective:
6th grade Social Studies Standard I, Objective 4: Analyze how the earliest
civilizations created technologies and systems to meet community and
personal needs.
ELL Strategies:
Students reading at this level are likely to be quite fluent speakers of English
although they may need more support with idioms, expressions, vocabulary,
and multiple meaning words. This will affect their ability to draw
conclusions and infer from the text. Encourage these students to use sticky
notes or a notebook to jot questions they have while reading to be
discussed/clarified at the guided reading table during the following session.
Text Structure:
Level:
Narrative
Informational
W
Enduring Understanding: Purpose
for reading
Students will understand how
ancient civilizations developed
and how they contributed to the
current state of the world
“I Can Statements” - Essential
Questions:
How did the earliest
civilizations begin and
develop?
How has their development
contributed to the world we live
in?
Other ELL strategies can be found at
http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/pages/4x4activity.htm
and tailored to the individual needs of your students.
Before Reading
Vocabulary:
Tier 2 Vocabulary Words: High frequency words that are found across a variety of domains. Provide studentfriendly explanations that tell what a word means in everyday connected language. For more information,
please see Bringing Words to Life by Beck & McKeyown.
ancient
archaeologist
artisan
conquer
civilization
culture
decline
dynasty
empire
Hindu
migrate
monsoon
pictograph
standardize
Activate/Build Prior Knowledge:
 Use map on page 4 to help students “place themselves” in the locale


Have students make a timeline that spans the dates found in the Table of Contents (2500 B.C. – A.D. 220),
have students add specific details to their timeline while reading
Read the introduction section together as a shared reading. The two questions at the end of page 3 will help
set the purpose for the rest of the reading.
Comprehension Strategy:
Informational text structures
During Reading
Using appropriate Guided reading strategies, students will be reading at their own pace and teachers will be
listening to students read, monitoring, giving feedback, taking anecdotal notes and running records.
Attend to Comprehension Within, Beyond, & About the text:
After Reading
Discussion questions and activities:
 After each section, discuss details that students added to the timeline they started before reading.
 On page 6 there is a reference to why civilizations are able to develop technology and art once they are able
to farm more than the people need to survive. Why do you think this is important?
 On page 10, what is the “Big Mystery”? What other ancient civilizations also abruptly came to an end?
 Page 12 introduces the idea of a caste system. This is a big idea in many, maybe most, civilizations – the
“haves” and the “have nots”. How do you think these differences in human conditions developed over time
into the rigid caste system?
 On page 15 there is a “Think About It” box which connects to the text on that page about how the geography
of the Huang He river valley contributed to development of a civilaztion there. It seems that many of the
ancient civilizations arose at similar times in very isolated geographical areas. What questions do you have
about why that may be?
 Help provide students with the magnitude of the Silk Road by showing a map like the one found at
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch1en/conc1en/silkroad.html.
Attend to Comprehension Within, Beyond, & About the text:
Content Core Integration:(Science, Soc. St., Math, etc.)
Assessment:
Activities:
 On page 5 there is a reference to annual rainfall.
Have students complete a Venn diagram as described on
Use http://countrystudies.us/unitedpage 29.
states/weather/utah/ to find the annual rainfall in
your city.
Once the diagram is complete, they should write a
 Complete the “Solve This” problems on page 7,
compare/contrast paragraph.
8, 19, 23, and 24.
 Read The Empress and the Silkworm by Lily
For more information on this writing form see the
Toy Hong (a Utah author).
following:
 How did that ancient seismograph on page 26
Interactive compare/contrast writing lesson at
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/compcontrast/
work? Have students work in small groups to
build a working model.
Compare/contrast chart at
http://www.ehow.com/how_2224749_compare-contrastessay-using-chart.html
Compare/contrast rubric
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson275/c
ompcon_rubric.pdf
*Not all activities will be done in each lesson. Some lessons may take multiple days to complete.
However, all students should be reading each time you meet.