Download The Amazing Human Body

Selections for
Modelling and
Shared Reading
Sample material from
the Human Body unit
This sampler includes:
9 Read Aloud:
− The Amazing Human Body
9 Sample selections and Teaching Notes:
− Travelling Blood
− Control Centre—The Brain
− Expanding Sketchy Writing
− Magazine Messages
− Making Connections While You Listen
Nelson Literacy 5a
The Human Body
Read-Aloud
PURPOSES
Literacy
To model the reading strategy Visualizing.
Science
To introduce systems and organs of the human body.
BEFORE YOU READ
• Brainstorm parts of the body together with students.
• Say, I am going to read an article to you about the amazing human body. You will hear about some of the body parts we
brainstormed and find out how they work together.
• Say, As I read I will try to visualize what I am reading about. This will help me understand what I am reading. I will try to use
descriptive words, comparisons, numbers, and measurements to create pictures in my mind.
The Amazing Human Body
by Barbara Seuling
Think about this. The human body can grow, move, heal itself, bear weight,
lift, twist, see, hear, feel, think, and reproduce. It adapts to its surroundings in
order to survive. It has thumbs, which have enabled people to do difficult
tasks that most other animals cannot do. The human body is a well-run
machine.
Inside this amazing machine are systems and organs that keep your body
working. You eat, and your stomach turns food into fuel, while the liver and
kidneys help clean out waste. You breathe, and your lungs pull in oxygen,
which your heart pumps into your bloodstream so it can reach all parts of your
body to keep it running. You walk, and your brain sends messages to your
muscles to tell them to move your legs. Everything in the body has a purpose.
Well, almost everything. Nobody knows why we have an appendix. It seems
to be left over from ancient times when it was used in digesting food.
Your skeleton is the framework for your body, but it can’t move on its own.
The muscles attached to your skeleton make your bones move. Joints between
the bones allow your body to bend and twist.
Lift your arm. That took muscles. Your arm bones would just hang there if
you didn’t have muscles to pull them up and down. Now wiggle your little
finger. Muscles made that work, too. More than 630 muscles move the various
parts of your body, inside and out.
Muscles are a little like strips of rubber that are stretched tightly between
two points. Some are narrow, like rubber bands. Others are wider, like the skin
of deflated balloons. When you move your muscles, they move the bones to
which they are attached.
If your body had a main headquarters, it would be your brain. Your brain is
the control centre. But it wouldn’t be much good if it wasn’t connected to the
rest of your body. The nervous system makes that connection.
Everything that is alive—grass, frogs, trees, people—is made up of cells.
These cells, so tiny you need a microscope to see them, contain the material
NEL
When the writer compares
muscles to rubber bands and
deflated balloons, it helps me
create a picture in my mind of
what muscles look like and
how they stretch and move.
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Nelson Literacy 5a
The Human Body
needed to grow, plus information that tells what each plant or animal is made
of. Some forms of life are only one cell. Human beings are made up of
trillions of cells.
There are all kinds of cells in all shapes and sizes, from skin and blood cells
to brain cells and liver cells. The cells in the nervous system are called
neurons.
Like a giant road map, the nervous system spreads out from your brain and
spinal cord to every part of your body. The spinal cord is a thick column of
nerves. Smaller nerves branch out from it. Neurons pick up signals from a
taste, a smell, or something you hear or touch and, acting like messengers,
deliver the signals to your brain. Then the brain sends messages back to the
appropriate body parts.
Up to now, the human body seems like a big floppy doll with moveable
parts and a brain. The big difference is that there’s more than air or sawdust
inside it. There’s a whole factory inside, constantly moving and churning and
pumping to keep your body working.
The inside of your body is like a factory where many parts, and systems
made of several parts, work together to keep your amazing human machine
going.
You have two lungs, like stretchy bags of air, that expand when you breathe
in air. Your lungs use the oxygen that is in the air. When you breathe out, you
get rid of the excess gasses that your body can’t use. Your lungs deflate like
balloons after you’ve let out the air. You breathe in and out 15 to 20 times a
minute. You don’t have to think about it. Your body does it automatically.
Your heart, a large muscle in your chest, pumps blood constantly. This
blood flows through a network of arteries to reach all parts of your body.
Your heart is always pumping to keep your blood moving. Blood travels
through the bloodstream that reaches every part of your body in a system of
pathways called arteries and veins. Your heart never stops, even when you
are asleep.
Machines need fuel to run. Food is the body’s fuel. No matter what kind of
food you eat, it has to be chewed into small enough bits to go down into your
stomach and be digested.
After your food is chewed, it goes down your throat through a long tube
called the esophagus and ends up in your stomach. Once the food enters your
stomach, it is slowly digested. It mixes with acid that breaks it down into
smaller and smaller pieces, until it is soft and mushy. The acid would burn a
hole through the wall of your stomach if you didn’t have a lining of gooey
mucus in your stomach.
The food passes into the small intestine, where it breaks down even more.
Nutrients are drawn from the food and passed into the bloodstream. The
bloodstream takes the nutrients on a journey to all the different parts of your
body, giving some nutrients to each cell.
Anything left in the small intestine that cannot be digested is sent to the
large intestine. Water and minerals are squeezed out of it and the solid waste
comes out of your body.
Another important part of your body is your skin. It’s a good thing you
have skin wrapped around you. It covers your bones and muscles, and keeps
your insides from spilling out. It also keeps out water, dirt, and germs.
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Read-Aloud
A trillion is an incredibly big
number—that’s one million
million! I can use this number
to try to visualize how many
cells the human body has. This
number is so big, I see an
enormous number of cells.
The writer uses the words
moving, churning, and
pumping to describe how body
parts are constantly working.
These descriptive words help
me visualize how vigorously
the parts move.
I’ve seen a few TV shows
about big factories. I know that
they have many different
departments and sections that
all work together to make
something. When I make
connections to what I already
know, those connections help
me visualize what I’m reading.
I can connect to my personal
experiences here to help me
visualize the mushy food in my
stomach. I think about when I
have been sick—yuck!
NEL
Nelson Literacy 5a
The Human Body
Read-Aloud
Your skin can get hurt, and then it can’t protect you as well. You can cut
yourself on a sharp object or bruise your skin when you fall. If you touch
something hot or stay in the sun too long you can get burned.
Your skin is made up of billions of tiny cells. When cells grow old, they die
and fall off your body. Thousands fall off every minute. After you take a bath
and dry yourself off, a fine powder rubs off your skin. It’s made of dead skin
cells. The amazing thing is that new cells grow from below to replace the dead
ones. As a matter of fact, your entire body makes a whole new layer of skin
every month.
All of these systems and organs combine to make one amazing and
complicated machine. And that amazing human body belongs to you!
STUDENT TALK
RELATED OPPORTUNITIES
Encourage students to discuss these questions:
This read-aloud passage can be revisited to support
• Why do you think the author compared parts of the
body to familiar things such as rubber bands and fuel?
How helpful was this?
• Did this article change how you think about the human
body? If so, how?
• Imagine this article was to be printed in a kids’
magazine. What would you add to it to make it easier to
understand? Why?
• Understanding Text Patterns: Identifying
characteristics of descriptive text pattern
• Understanding Writing Strategies: Expanding
sketchy writing
• Understanding Listening Strategies: Making
connections while you listen
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Teacher Notes for “Travelling Blood”
FOCUS
USING THE
TRANSPARENCY
MODELLING THE STRATEGY
Understanding Reading Strategies: Visualizing
Cover up the labelled diagram. Read the transparency with the think-alouds. Then,
uncover the labelled diagram.
SUGGESTED THINK-ALOUD
Creating pictures in your mind, or visualizing, can
help you understand what you read. A good writer
gives details that help you to create those pictures.
Making connections to what I already know can help •
me visualize. I can picture the Earth from space
because I’ve seen photos. Picturing my blood
vessels stretching two and a half times around the
Earth is amazing!
Use comparisons to help you
create a clear picture.
The phrase “about the size of your fist” gives me a
clear picture of the size of the heart. This
comparison helps me to visualize this muscle.
Make connections to personal
experiences.
Here, I connect to my personal experiences when I’ve •
taken my pulse. I can feel how my heart’s beating
action makes the blood stop and start. That connection
helps me visualize the heart pumping blood.
A
Make connections to what you
already know.
•
A
A
The descriptive words strong, elastic, narrower, and •
branch off help me to visualize the arteries and
capillaries. The picture in my mind is of tiny rubbery
tubes running throughout my body like the branches
of a tree.
Look for details, such as
numbers, that help you create a
picture in your mind.
The number 2000 helps me visualize how quickly
the blood travels around my body every day. This
detail creates a picture in my mind of my blood
speeding through my body—so fast that it goes
around 2000 times a day!
A
Use descriptive words to help you
create pictures in your mind.
A
A
•
STUDENT TALK
FURTHER SHARED READING
• Ask, How did the images you pictured match
the labelled diagram? What additional
information does the labelled diagram provide?
This transparency can be revisited to support
• Ask, What elements of a text can you look for
to help you visualize what you’re reading?
• Understanding Writing Strategies: Expanding sketchy writing
• Ask, How did visualizing help you to
understand the article?
• Understanding Text Patterns: Identifying characteristics of descriptive
text pattern
• Understanding Listening Strategies: Making connections while you
listen
You can also use “Surfing the Sky” from Skyrider Shared Reading Set C to
support Visualizing.
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
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Nelson Literacy 5a
The Human Body
Travelling Blood
by Elizabeth Chu
Adults have between five and six litres of blood
constantly travelling inside their body.
blood
Smaller bodies contain smaller amounts. circulating
Laid out end to end, your blood vessels around lungs
could circle Earth two and a half times,
or stretch about 100 000 km.
Blood is pumped by your heart, a muscle
near the centre of your chest
blood
that is about the size of your
circulating
fist. Your heart works in a
through kidney
squeezing-then-pushing
action—it does this about 70 times
every minute. When you feel your
pulse, you’re feeling your blood
stopping and starting as it moves
through your body.
Blood is pumped out of your
heart through strong, elastic tubes
called arteries. It then travels through
capillaries—narrower tubes that branch capillary
off from the arteries. The capillaries get
smaller and smaller as they spread throughout
the body.
Blood delivers oxygen and nutrients to every
cell on its journey through your body. At the
same time it picks up waste material, and finally
returns to the heart through your veins. How
many times does your blood make this trip?
Nearly 2000 times a day!
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
vein
artery
heart
blood
circulating
through gut
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Teacher Notes for “Control Centre The Brain”
FOCUS
USING THE
TRANSPARENCY
MODELLING THE STRATEGY
Understanding Text Patterns: Identifying characteristics of descriptive text pattern
Read the transparency without interruption. Then, reread the transparency with the
think-alouds.
SUGGESTED THINK-ALOUD
This article is an example of descriptive text pattern.
Now that we have read it once, we will look for
characteristics of descriptive text pattern and think
about how recognizing the text pattern can help us
understand the article better.
A
The topic is clearly identified.
The attributes of the topic are
clearly identified and often
presented in sections.
Each section has details that
describe something important
about an attribute.
In descriptive text pattern, the topic is clearly
identified. The title and the first sentence tell me
what the article is about: the brain.
•
A
Descriptive text pattern is often divided into sections, •
each of which clearly identifies and presents an
attribute of the main topic. This heading helps me to
identify what attribute will be discussed in this
section: the parts of the brain.
A
A
Each section within descriptive text pattern contains •
details that describe something important about an
attribute of the topic. The details in this section tell
me about what certain parts of the brain control.
A
Each section has details that
describe something important
about an attribute.
This section is about the nervous system. What
important information does this section contain?
•
STUDENT TALK
FURTHER SHARED READING
• Ask, What are some characteristics of
descriptive text pattern?
This transparency can be revisited to support
• Ask, How could you use descriptive text
pattern to find information quickly?
• Understanding Writing Strategies: Expanding sketchy writing
• Ask, How does the labelled diagram help you
understand the article? What other
information could have been included in
the diagram?
• Understanding Reading Strategies: Visualizing
• Understanding Listening Strategies: Making connections while you
listen
You can also use “Whales of the World” from Skyrider Shared Reading Set C to
support Identifying characteristics of descriptive text pattern.
You can use Transparency 59 as a graphic organizer to demonstrate descriptive
text pattern.
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
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Nelson Literacy 5a
Control Centre
The Human Body
The Brain
by Anne Marshall
Your brain is as big as your two fists side by side. It helps you
think, learn, remember, feel emotions, have ideas, sleep, and
dream. Yet the brain looks like a wrinkly lump of grey-pink
jelly! Its amazing nerve activity uses up one-fifth of all the
energy needed by your body.
Parts of the Brain
The cerebrum is responsible for thoughts and actions. Skills
such as writing are controlled by the cerebellum. The brain
stem controls processes such as breathing. Memory and
learning are controlled by the hippocampus. The thalamus
makes sense of all the nerve messages the brain receives.
The brain is protected by the skull, a thick case of bone.
The Brain’s Partners
Nerves send high-speed
messages to the brain
along a network
called the nervous
system. This
system controls
everything we
do—from
blinking to running.
The whole system is
made up of the brain,
the spinal cord, and
the nerves.
cerebellum
cerebrum
thalamus
hippocampus
brain stem
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
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Teacher Notes for “Expanding Sketchy Writing”
FOCUS
USING THE
TRANSPARENCY
MODELLING THE STRATEGY
Understanding Writing Strategies: Expanding sketchy writing
Cover up the second draft. Read the transparency with the think-alouds, uncovering the
second draft when appropriate.
SUGGESTED THINK-ALOUD
Sketchy writing is writing that doesn’t include
enough detail. When you don’t include enough detail,
your readers might not understand your ideas.
Expanding sketchy writing makes your work
stronger. We are going to read two versions of a letter
to the editor and look at how the letter was revised.
After the writer wrote this first letter, he asked himself, •
“Will the reader understand my message?” He
realized that his readers might not understand how
riding his bike connects with idling cars. He decided to
revise his letter to expand the sketchy writing.
Explain your ideas clearly.
To revise his letter, the writer needs to explain his
ideas clearly. In his second draft he explains what
idling is and why people should stop doing it.
Make your connections obvious
so your reader doesn’t have to
guess what the connections are.
The writer also revises to make his connections
•
obvious so his readers won’t have to guess what the
connections are. He adds details about how pollution
affects the air that he breathes when he rides his
bike around town.
Ask yourself, “Will the reader
understand my message?”
When the writer finished his second draft, he asked
himself again if readers would be able to understand
his message. Now that he has explained his ideas
clearly and made his connections obvious, he is
confident that they will.
•
A
Ask yourself, “Will the reader
understand my message?”
STUDENT TALK
FURTHER SHARED READING
• Ask, What details and connections does the
writer add in his revised letter to help readers
understand his message?
This transparency can be revisited to support
• Ask, How can you find out if your writing is
“sketchy”?
A
A
• Understanding Reading Strategies: Visualizing
• Understanding Listening Strategies: Making connections while you
listen
• Ask, What can you do to expand sketchy
writing?
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
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Nelson Literacy 5a
Expanding Sketchy Writing
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
The Human Body
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Nelson Literacy 5a
Teacher Notes for “Magazine Messages”
FOCUS
USING THE
TRANSPARENCY
IDENTIFYING
CHARACTERISTICS OF
MAGAZINE ARTICLES
Understanding Media: Identifying characteristics of magazine articles
Read the transparency with the think-alouds.
SUGGESTED THINK-ALOUD
I like to read magazines for interesting articles about
what is happening in the world today. Magazine
articles have characteristics that make them easy
and enjoyable to read.
Visuals reach out to readers.
The photos at the top are the first things I notice
when I look at this article. They catch my attention
and make me want to know more about the article
and why there are three photos in sequence.
•
Different text features give
readers different kinds of
information.
This article contains a title and captions for the
photos. These different text features each give us
different kinds of information about the article.
•
The byline and body text are also
features in magazine articles.
Two other features of magazine articles are the byline •
and the body text. A byline tells us who wrote the
article. Sometimes, it can also tell us who
photographed or illustrated the article. The body text is
the text that makes up the main portion of the article.
Features such as subheads make
information stand out in
interesting ways.
Magazine articles often have features that make
•
information stand out in interesting ways. The
subheads catch my attention and make me wonder
what each section of text is about.
A
A
A
A
STUDENT TALK
FURTHER SHARED READING
• Ask, What characteristics did we identify in
this magazine article? Can you think of other
characteristics of magazine articles?
This transparency can be revisited to support
• Ask, What type of audience do you think the
writer intended this article for? What type of
magazine do you think this article might
appear in?
A
A
A
• Understanding Reading Strategies: Visualizing
• Understanding Writing Strategies: Expanding sketchy writing
• Understanding Listening Strategies: Making connections while you
listen
• Ask, Do you think the age-progression software
program will help people decide to live
healthier lives? Why or why not?
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
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Nelson Literacy 5a
The Human Body
Magazine Messages
Body Works • 9 Fall
Age 8
by Eric Reguly
The kids giggle and groan. Some
are horrified. “I can’t believe I’ll
look like that,” says one of the
young users of the aging machine
at the Ontario Science Centre
in Toronto.
The machine is actually a software
program called APRIL. It snaps a
picture of you, which then starts to
age. Within minutes, you get an
idea of what you’ll look like at 30,
50, or 70.
The age-progression software
uses a database of more than 7000
3-D facial scans of people of all ages
and backgrounds. Though the
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
Age 72
Age 72 (smoker)
program can’t guarantee what
you’ll look like as you age, it can
give you some idea. In part, this is
possible because the database
contains a visual record of how
different ethnic groups display age
at different rates.
Eventually, the company that
created APRIL wants to launch a
product that will push people,
especially teens, to live healthier
lives. Software users could
manipulate images to portray the
effects of smoking, sun exposure,
and body mass (how much you
weigh). Digitally aged to 65, an
image of a teen as a smoker has
deep wrinkles and looks like an 80year-old. Health centres are using
images like these to promote antismoking campaigns.
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Teacher Notes for “Making Connections While You Listen”
FOCUS
USING THE
TRANSPARENCY
MODELLING THE STRATEGY
Understanding Listening Strategies: Making connections while you listen
Read the transparency with the think-alouds.
SUGGESTED THINK-ALOUD
When you listen to someone speak, you make
connections to your own experiences and
knowledge. Making connections while you listen
helps you to understand what the person is saying.
Think about what you already
know about the speaker’s topic.
The boy is remembering experiences he’s had that •
relate to the topic. The speaker says that when Max
lost his foot he thought he’d never play soccer
again. The boy is thinking about how much he
enjoys playing soccer and how he would hate to
give it up if he lost a foot in an accident.
A
A
You can also make connections by thinking about
•
what you already know about the speaker’s topic. In
this frame, the girl is thinking about something she
already knows about people who have lost limbs—
the fact that Terry Fox ran using an artificial leg.
Think about what you already
know about the speaker’s topic.
Here the boy makes a connection to what he already •
knows about prosthetic legs. He knows that Terry
Fox had a prosthetic leg.
Remember experiences you’ve
had that relate to the topic.
The girl makes a connection between what the
•
speaker is saying and an experience she has had.
What is the announcer saying in this frame? The girl
has seen how her cousin’s prosthetic hand allows her
to do lots of things, just like Max’s prosthetic leg does.
Use these connections to increase
your understanding of the topic.
The two listeners have used the connections they
•
made to increase their understanding of the topic.
They understand how much prosthetic limbs help kids
like Max and now they want to raise money to help.
A
A
A
Remember experiences you’ve
had that relate to the topic.
STUDENT TALK
• Ask, What connections do you make to what
the children heard on TV?
• Ask, What types of connections can we make
while we listen to someone speak?
• Ask, Why should we try to make connections
while we listen?
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
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The Human Body
Making Connections While You Listen
Age 72
Copyright © 2008 by Nelson, a division of Thomson Canada Limited
Age 72 (smoker)
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