Add this going to Mars passage accompanied by the writing response activity to your intermediate classroom.
This was designed to give students reading and writing practice during science class.
You can download this free resource for teachers and homeschool families at the bottom of this post.
About the reading passage
The reading passage was written to go along with our unit on space in my sixth-grade science classroom.
Students had been enjoying reading and learning about the Artemis missions and this became a good connection to those discussions.
The reading focuses on the challenges scientists will need to overcome before humans can go to Mars. It also shares why Mars is the focus for a human colony before other planets in our solar system.
As we read the passage in class, we worked on notetaking skills. I modeled what good annotations might look like while students added some of their own. We focused on vocabulary and connecting the reading to what we had been learning in class.
Below, I am sharing pictures of student notetaking examples.
One simple idea students are usually able to do as we begin, is to make a list. They can often find examples in the text to group together and then think of a title for the list.
I tell students that highlighting and underlining is ok to use as a strategy to help them. However, the underlining by itself does not explain what they are thinking to me.
Writing response
After reading and annotating the passage, students were given the task of writing a response. The question asked them to consider living on Mars.
Students had to state their thesis, share evidence from the text, a counterargument, and then restate their thesis.
I emphasized that this would be a short written response instead of a multiple paragraph essay.
The students were engaged in the response and this gave me another writing sample to add to student collections. By the end of the year, My goal is to have one response from each grading period so students are able to look at their growth.
You can download this free set by clicking on the green apples below:
This is a free resource for teachers and homeschool families. You may copy for your classroom or home. You may not sell or modify and sell in any format.