AnyOneCanRead®

      
Module F – Lessons 21 to 30

Lesson 21 – Prefixes 03: “DIS-“

    
The prefix “DIS-” means “not,” or “opposite of.” Examples: “disagree” means “not agree”; “dislikable” means “not likable”; “disloyalty” means “not showing loyalty.” Etc …   
   
NEW WORDS: Atkinson, Barrett’s, Beasley’s, Benton, Berg, CEO’s, Freud’s, Hilda, Jillian, Julian, Kendrick, Middleton, Mikayla, Mitch, Montel, Montgomery, Murillo, Nguyen, Nobel, Nolan, Rosales, Snyders, Sudanese, Tillie, Vaughans, Winnie, absconding, author’s, cellphones, charity’s, coffers, convicted, dieting, disable, disaccord, disagrees, disallowed, disappearances, disapproving, disarm, disarranged, disarrayed, disavowed, disband, disbar, disburse, discarnate, discharging, disclaim, disclaimer, disclosure, discolor, discomforting, disconcerting, disconnect, discontents, discounting, discourages, discredit, disembarks, disembodied, disembowel, disengage, disfavor, disfigured, disfrocked, disgraced, disguising, disharmony, disheartening, dishonestly, dishonor, disinclined, disinfect, disinherited, disinvest, disinvite, disjoin, disjoint, dislikable, disliking, dislocated, dislodge, disloyalty, dismounts, disobeyed, disorderly, disoriented, disown, disparity, dispassionate, dispiriting, displaces, displeases, disprove, disproven, disqualified, disregards, disrepair, disrepute, disrespect, disrobe, dissatisfying, disservice, dissimilarly, distaste, distemper, distrusts, disunion, disuse, factions, footnotes, gymnast, incendiary, ineffective, interviews, matched, misdemeanor, partying, perceptions, praetor, scandals, skimpy, socialites, texts, thriller, wackos     
   
   

Benton is the most dislikable boy in the school.

I think that Tillie disembarks from her cruise when they get into the port at Miami.

We’re going to disembowel a frog in Ms. Beasley’s biology class tomorrow.

There’s a huge disparity of wealth in our city.

Our Principal, Mr. Atkinson, discourages student use of cellphones during the school day.

It was disconcerting to the little kids when two big bull dogs got into a fight at the park.

Detective Murillo has launched an investigation into the disappearances of two well-known socialites in the last month.

If you wash this sweater in with the whites, it will discolor them.

Mom gave Nolan a disapproving look when he belched at the dinner table.

The King disinherited his third son after one too many partying and drug use scandals.

I’m disinclined to let Hilda date Mitch anymore.

A large, disfigured beast emerged from the cemetery.

The prosecutor is confident that she can disprove the defendant’s story.

I’m going to disinvest all of my stock in that company due to their CEO’s constant incendiary comments.

It’s time to disburse the balloons to all of the children.

It was dispiriting to the team when their well-loved coach announced his retirement.

Mrs. Nguyen will be staying with you while we’re on vacation, and any disrespect that you might show to her will have severe repercussions!

It displeases my mom if I bring animals like frogs and lizards into the house.

Any disloyalty shown to the Praetor will be met with almost certain death.

Have you read Freud’s “Civilization and its Discontents?”

There is huge disaccord between two Sudanese generals who are at war with each other.

He joked, “I’d be tempted to disown any of my own children who would vote for that political candidate!”

She had taken such a huge disliking to golf that she finally threw her clubs into a dumpster.

The thieves completely disarranged all of the contents of drawers, cabinets, closets, etc. in our house.

The horse was disqualified from the race when illegal drugs were found in his system.

Julian ran his business dishonestly for years, but the Feds finally caught up to him and got him sent to prison.

I am unable to disjoin the horrible images of battle from when I was in the Marines.

Lord Middleton fell into disfavor with the Queen and was no longer one of her advisors.

When the Prince became King, he would come to disjoint most of the accomplishments of his father.

You’ve done a huge disservice to the President by making those insane comments in your interview.

The attorney was disfrocked due to her huge scandal, and she could never practice law again.

When I had to learn to drive a stick shift, I found it difficult to disengage the clutch.

If the Snyders say that they’re coming to the party, we’ll have to disinvite the Vaughans, because they hate each other.

Mom and Dad, we promise that while you’re gone, none of our house rules will be disobeyed.

He was the first President to refuse disclosure of his taxes.

Once the peace treaty is signed, our troops will be able to safely disband.

Watch how this huge rock displaces water when I put it into this full pail.

There is a huge disconnect between his story and what his texts and emails suggest actually happened.

This gymnast dismounts from her programs very cleanly most of the time.

Holmes was disguising himself as a homeless wretch.

A disembodied ghoul slowly floated towards us from the graveyard.

They are heavily discounting last year’s car models in order to clean out inventory.

It was disheartening to see the tennis pro double-fault on so many of her serves, which contributed to a brutal loss in the match.

Call in the bomb squad to disable this incendiary device!

In this sci-fi thriller, the mad scientist finds a way to become discarnate, where he can do harm while not being seen.

The school became way more conservative, and it disallowed the wearing of any skimpy clothing.

Kendrick gained a distaste for popcorn after eating too much of it and getting sick on it a few times.

Although Jillian and Mikayla were identical twins, they were dissimilarly matched in terms of athletic capability.

Dr. Rosales will dislodge this bullet from your thigh.

Mom was disoriented while trying to wake up in the recovery room.

If Mr. Berg is convicted in this case, they will disbar him from ever practicing law again.

I disclaim any interest in joining that club ever again; those people are wackos.

That dispassionate critic completely blasted the author’s new novella.

After being found guilty of absconding with money from the charity’s coffers, she fell into complete disrepute.

Dad disagrees with Mom about how we should remodel our house.

The doctor had me disrobe behind a curtain for my medical examination, and I put on a hospital gown.

My cat distrusts me whenever I try to pet her on her head.

There’s so much disharmony in the Barrett’s marriage that I expect them to get a divorce.

It’s discomforting to think that our landlord might raise our rent soon.

Montel disavowed any knowledge about the missing cookies.

It’s time to get the dog his canine distemper vaccine.

In her will, she left us a small beach cottage, but it was in such a state of disrepair that we just razed it to the ground.

Send in the troops to disarm the militants.

We had a very dissatisfying experience on that cruise line.

Everything on our property was totally disarrayed after the hurricane passed.

They’re discharging our freight from the ship over on Pier One.

That ineffective method of dieting has fallen into disuse.

The boss asked me to disinfect all of the fitness machines in the gym.

Sir Montgomery, do not dishonor your king by losing this joust!

If there is one disclaimer in this contract, then there must be fifty more!

I hate to discredit your perceptions about this, but here are three different studies that prove what you’re saying is completely wrong.

The disgraced politician refused to grant any interviews.

This old theory was disproven by two Nobel-prize-winning botanists.

I’m in brutal pain; I think that I’ve dislocated my shoulder.

There was much disunion among the various factions in the trade association.

When reading complex texts, Winnie disregards the footnotes, which could help her to understand the content better.

In our state, disorderly conduct is a misdemeanor and may carry a penalty of up to 12 months in jail and / or $500.

    
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

Even More Fairy Tales And Tall Tales

Lesson 22 – Part One

    
NEW WORDS: Andersen, Disney, abject, abridged, acclimatized, affronted, apologies, appalling, ascendancy, ashen, assuaged, banshee, barons, bellyaching, bemoaned, beneficent, bete, bodyguards, bonehead, cabana, caparison, castigation, caustically, chandeliers, conceding, cretinous, deceivers, dinky, dithered, dopey, duchesses, equivocated, espied, esurient, fabulist, filched, flatterers, flounder, foodstuff, foyer, generic, habiliments, haughtily, henpecking, idiots, immoderate, ingratiation, inhibitions, luxuriousness, magenta, mandating, manservant, outfitter, pellucid, pendant, piscator, plafonds, quibble, raconteurs, rankest, rapacity, reconstituted, remarking, rewritten, rosebushes, salvageable, sauntering, sentries, shanty, stipulated, swindler, swindlers, tapestries, threadless, throaty, transients, tribulations, trite, underwent, yokefellow     
   
   

Story One: “The Fisherman and His Wife”
   
This first fairy tale was made well-known by the Brothers Grimm, two raconteurs from Germany in the early 1800s.
   
Once there was a fisherman. He lived with his wife in a wee, old, run-down shanty. They lived by the sea. Each day, the piscator went down to the sea to fish. One day, he sat looking into the pellucid, shining water. He felt a strong tug on his line. He pulled with all of his might. At last, out flopped a large golden flounder.
   
Then, out of the blue, the fish spoke. “Please let me go,” said the fish. “I am not a trite, generic fish. I’m an enchanted prince. Put me back in the water. Let me live!”
   
“Swim off then!” said the man. “I would not eat a fish that can talk!”
   
At the end of the day, the fisherman went back to his wife. She was seated in the wee, old, run-down hut. “Did you catch some fish?” she asked.
   
“No,” said the man. “I did catch one fish. But he told me he was an enchanted prince. He asked me to throw him back. So, I did.”
   
“You bonehead!” said the wife. “That was a magic fish! You should have asked him for something.”
   
“Like what?” said the man.
   
“Go back and ask him to change this dinky hut. I want him to turn it into a charming cabana.”
   
The fisherman did not want to go. But he did not want to quibble with his wife, either. So, he made his way back to the sea. When he got there, the water was no longer clear and shining. It was dull and greenish.
   
The fisherman called, “Hear me, please, oh magic fish. My wife has sent me with a wish.”
   
The fish swam up to the surface. He asked, “What does she want?”
   
“She says that she wants to live in a charming cottage,” said the man.
   
“Go home,” said the fish. “She has her cottage.”
   
So, he went home. Sure enough, there was his wife. She stood in the doorway of a charming cottage. It had a little front yard. And there was a garden and some chickens and a goose pecking at the ground. In the home there was a living room, a kitchen, a dining room, and a bedroom. “Great!” said the man. “This is sure to make you quite glad!”
   
The fisherman’s wife was assuaged. But that lasted for just a week. Then she said, “Yokefellow, I am tired of this wee cottage. I want to live in a big stone castle. Go and ask the fish to give us a castle.”

“But, wife,” said the fisherman. “He has just given us this cottage. If I go back so soon, he may be affronted with me.”
   
“Go and ask!” said the wife.
   
The fisherman shook his head. He was bellyaching to himself, “It’s not right.” But he did as she stipulated. He reached the sea. This time, the water had turned from dull green to dark magenta and an ashen hue.
   
The man called, “Hear me, please, oh magic fish. My wife has sent me with a wish.”
   
The fish swam up. The man said, “My wife wishes to live in a big stone castle.”
   
“Go home,” said the fish. “You will find her in a castle.”
   
When the fisherman got back, he could hardly believe his eyes. The cottage had been reconstituted as a large stone castle. A manservant unrolled a drawbridge for him. The fisherman went across the bridge and into the castle. There, he espied two servants sweeping a smooth marble floor. The walls were covered with beautiful tapestries. Crystal chandeliers hung from the plafonds above. His wife stood in the center of the room. She was next to a table piled high with one delicious foodstuff after another.
   
“Now, for sure, you will be content,” said the man to his wife.
   
And she was – until the next morning. As the sun rose, the man’s wife poked her husband in the side. She barked, “Husband, get up. Go to the fish at once. Tell him that I wish to be queen of all the land.”
   
“Heavens!” cried the fisherman. “I can’t ask for that!”
   
“Go and ask him!” said his wife.
    
The abject fisherman walked to the sea. The water was black. It bubbled and now gave off the rankest of smells.
   
The man equivocated, but then he finally called, “Hear me, please, oh magic fish. My wife has sent me with a wish.”
   
The fish swam up. This time he asked, in an irritated voice, “Now what the heck does she want?”
   
The man’s head hung low. He said, “My wife wishes to be queen of all the land.”

“Go home,” said the fish. “She is now such a queen.”
   
The man went home. He found that the castle had grown even larger. It had tall stone turrets on each corner. It had a crimson flag flapping in the wind. Two sentries in suits of armor stood at the door. They escorted the fisherman inside. There, he found his wife sitting on a high throne studded with diamonds. She wore a long silk dress and a golden crown. In her hand she held a scepter studded with rubies. On one side of her stood barons, dukes, and duchesses. On the other side stood a line of ladies-in-waiting. Each one was shorter than the one before.
   
“So,” said the man, “now you are queen.”
   
“Yes, I am,” said his wife haughtily.
   
“Well, then,” said the fisherman. “I suppose that there is nothing more to wish for.”
   
But that very night, as the sun went down and the moon began to rise in the sky, the man’s wife sent for her husband. “Husband!” she bellowed like a henpecking banshee, “it displeases me that the sun and moon will not rise and set as I am mandating them to. Go to the fish. Tell him that I must have the ascendancy to make the sun and the moon rise and set whenever I choose. See that it is done now!”
   
The man walked back to the sea. He felt sick all over. His knees knocked together nervously. At the seaside, thunder roared, and lightning flashed. Huge dark waves crashed on the shore.
   
The fisherman had to shout. “Hear me, please, oh magic fish. My wife has sent me with a wish.”
   
The fish swam up and spewed, “WHAT? Yet again? She wants more, still? Are there no inhibitions to curb her immoderate rapacity?!”
     
The fisherman said, “My wife wants the power to make the sun and the moon rise and set whenever she chooses.”
   
The fish just spat out, “ENOUGH! Go home.” And so the fisherman did. There, he found his wife sitting in the old, run-down hut. And there they live to this very day.
   
What is the lesson in this tale? Don’t be as esurient as the fisherman’s wife. If you are, you might lose everything that you gain.

Story Two: “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
   
This 2nd fairy tale was written by a fabulist named Hans Christian Andersen. He was from Denmark.
   
Lots of years past, there was an emperor who loved fine clothes. He did not care for hunting. He did not care for plays or opera. He was no lover of gourmet food or wine. His only ambition was always to be well-dressed. He had a different coat for each hour of the day. He loved to walk about and show off his fancy caparison.
   
One day two transients came to town. They were swindlers. But they said that they were master weavers. They claimed to be from a faraway land. They told the emperor that they could weave the most gorgeous cloth in the world. And they said that it was also magical. It was woven so that only the smartest people could see it. Those who were cretinous could stare at the cloth all day and not see a thing.
   
“Brilliant!” thought the emperor. “I will have these men make a suit for me. When it is done, I will find out who can see it. That way I will be able to tell which of the men who serve me are brainy and which are idiots.” The emperor gave the deceivers a purse. It was filled with gold coins. He told them to begin weaving the magic cloth right away.
   
The swindlers set up two weaving looms. They pretended to be weaving their magic cloth. But they had nothing at all on their looms. A few days passed. The emperor grew curious to see the cloth. At first, he thought that he might check up on the weavers himself. But then he recalled what they had said. Only intelligent people could see the cloth. He was confident that he was smart. There could be no doubt of that. But what if he was not? What if he could not see the cloth? Just to be on the safe side, he decided to send his prime minister to have a look.
   
“He is very smart,” said the king. “If he can’t see the cloth, I dare say that no one can!” He called for the prime minister. He sent him to check up on the weavers. The prime minister went to the room and peeked in. The two swindlers were working away at their looms.
   
“Prime Minister!” one of the swindlers called out. “You are welcome here! Come in! Come in! Come and see the cloth that we have produced.” The man waved his hand at the empty loom. He said, “Isn’t it gorgeous?” The prime minister squinted. Then he rubbed his head. He did not see any cloth at all. But he did not dare to admit it. That would mean that he was a fool. So, he pretended to see the cloth.

“Yes!” said the prime minister. “It is most beautiful, indeed! I like it very much! Keep up the good work!”
   
The prime minister turned to leave. But the second swindler called out to him. “Wait! Don’t go. You must not leave without touching the cloth! I think that you will be impressed. We were just remarking that it is the softest cloth that we have ever woven.”
   
The prime minister dithered for a moment. Then he said, “Of course! Of course!” And he walked up to one of the looms. He reached out his hand. He rubbed his fingers together in the area where he thought the cloth must be. He could not feel anything. But he said, “It is quite soft, indeed! Why, it’s lighter than air!”
   
“Thank you!” said the first swindler. “We are pleased with what we have done. And we’ve made good progress, too. But we need a little more money. That’s for thread and other materials. Of course, you understand.”
   
“Of course! Of course!” said the prime minister. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of coins. Then he handed the coins to the swindlers. Then, the prime minister went back to the emperor. He told him that the cloth was quite lovely, and as soft as could be. He said that he was sure that the emperor would like it. That was what the emperor had hoped to hear. The next day, he went to have a look for himself. After all, if his prime minister had seen the cloth, surely he could see it, too.
   
He stepped into the room where the two men had set up their looms. But the emperor saw nothing on them.
   
“This is terrible!” the emperor thought. I don’t see a thing. What can this mean? If the prime minister saw the cloth, it must be there. Then why can’t I see it? Am I stupid? Am I unfit to be emperor? That would be the most appalling thing that could happen to me! But out loud he said, “It is magnificent! Why, I have never seen cloth so lovely!”
   
“Shall we go ahead and make you a suit, then, Your Majesty?” asked the first swindler.
   
“Yes, yes. By all means!” said the emperor. “You can get my measurements from the royal outfitter.”

The two swindlers sat up late into the night. They were pretending to work on the suit. They wove more invisible cloth. They cut the air with scissors. They stitched the wind with threadless needles. Other noblemen came to inspect the cloth. And all of them pretended to be able to see it, for they did not wish to appear dopey.
   
Soon the whole town was talking about the magic cloth and the emperor’s new suit. At last, the day came when the emperor was to wear his new clothes in public. The two swindlers came to the emperor’s dressing room at daybreak. “Here is the jacket!” said the first swindler. He was holding up an empty hanger.
   
“And here are the pants!” said the other. He was holding one hand in the air. “What do you think of them?”
   
All of the emperor’s men agreed that the new clothes were splendid. The emperor took off his clothes. Then the two swindlers pretended to help him put on the make-believe habiliments.
   
“Slip your right leg in here, your majesty. That’s it! Now your left leg. Good. Now I must tell you, these pants are not like regular pants. The fabric is so light and airy that it feels like you are wearing nothing at all. But that is the beauty of them!”
   
The men helped the emperor put on the imaginary clothes. Then they led him to his looking glass. “How handsome you look!” said one of the swindlers. All of the flatterers nodded their heads in agreement.
   
The emperor marched out of the dressing room. He made his way out of the palace. He was followed by many advisors and servants. He marched down the main street of town. Soldiers and bodyguards were surrounding him on all sides. The streets were lined with great crowds. Everyone had heard about the emperor’s new clothes, made of magic fabric that only the wise could see.
   
“How lovely the emperor’s new clothes are!” one man said.
   
“And how well they fit him!” added a woman. None of them were conceding that they could not see a thing!
   
The emperor marched through the street. He was bursting with pride. He showed off his brilliant new suit to each person in the land. Much to his surprise, they all seemed to see what he could not. And so, he was not going to be the one to tell them!
   
Just then, a young child stepped out of the crowd. He cried out, “He hasn’t got anything on!” A hush fell over the crowd. For a few seconds, no one said a thing. Then they all began to whisper.
   
“The child is right. The emperor isn’t wearing a thing!” they said. Then people began to giggle and laugh as they cried out, “He hasn’t got anything on!”
   
At last, the emperor knew that he had been tricked. He tried to march back to the palace as proudly as ever. But he was blushing from head to toe, as everyone could plainly see.
   
What is the lesson in this story? Don’t be so full of pride, like the emperor was, that you ignore what’s right in front of you. Or, in this case, what ISN’T in front of you.

Story Three: “Beauty and the Beast”, Part One
   
You might know this tale. You may have seen the Walt Disney movie about it. This tale was written back in 1740, in France. In French, the title is “La Belle et la Bete.” It was abridged and rewritten in 1756 into the tale below.
      
It was once upon a time. In a faraway land, there lived a merchant. He lived with his three daughters. He was quite rich. In fact, he had more cash than he needed. But then he underwent a series of great tribulations.
   
First, he lost two of his biggest ships in a great storm at sea. They were full of cargo. Then, he was forced to give up his lavish home in the city. He could no longer afford to pay for it. So, the merchant lost his fortune. He was left with nothing. He told his daughters that they would have to move to a wee cottage in the woods. It was far from town. They would have to work hard and live simply.
   
The two older daughters bemoaned caustically. They had grown acclimatized to a life of luxuriousness. But the youngest daughter always tried to make the best of things. Her name was “Beauty.”
   
A few months passed. The man heard that one of his ships, which he thought had been lost at sea, had in fact landed with a cargo of valuable goods to sell. He prepared to make the long trip to the city. Once there, he would claim his goods. He asked his daughters what he might bring them when he came back.
   
The eldest asked for a nice gown. The second asked for a diamond pendant. Beauty, too, had lots of things that she wished for. But there was nothing that her father’s cash could buy. So, she replied just to be polite. “Please bring me a rose. I have not seen one since we came here. And I love them so much.”
   
The man soon reached his ship. He found that most of his goods had been filched. He sold what was salvageable. He made just enough money to buy a dress for his eldest daughter and a necklace for his second daughter. Then he set off for home.
   
On the way home, snow fell. It covered the road. It made it hard to see. The wind blew quite hard. It almost knocked the man off of his horse. He was worried that he might get lost in the blizzard. So, he decided that he should stop at the next house that he came to. He would wait there till the storm passed. After a while, he came upon a large palace. Lights were blazing in it. He knocked. But no one came to the door. He found that the door was unlocked. So, he opened it and peered in.

“Hi!” he called out. But there was no answer. He stepped into the foyer. He brushed the snow off of his coat. Curious, yet hesitant, the man slowly made his way into a large dining hall. To his surprise, a fire was burning in the fireplace. And a little table had been set with a sumptuous meal. It was just right for one person.
   
“Hi?” he called again. “Is someone here?” Again, there was no answer. The merchant inspected the food. “Is someone eating this food?” he asked. “Would you mind if I had a few bites? I have been riding in a bitter snowstorm,” he said. When there was no reply, the man decided that he would have a few bites of food. Then he would look for his beneficent host.
   
After he had eaten, he set off to find the owner of the house to thank him. He was sauntering through the rooms on the ground floor. But neither master nor servant could be found. At last, he stepped out into a lovely garden. He was surprised to find that the garden was in full bloom. How could that be when it was the middle of winter? Further, most of the countryside was draped in a thick blanket of snow.
   
In the garden, birds chirped. Flowers bloomed. The air was sweet and balmy. The man walked the garden till he came upon a row of pretty rosebushes. He recalled that Beauty had asked him to bring her a rose. He reached out to pluck a rose. But just as the stem broke, he heard a loud roar behind him.
   
“Who told you that you might pick roses in my garden?!” said a low, throaty voice. The startled merchant turned around. He saw a fearsome creature. He was half man and half beast. “What?!” said the beast. “Is it not enough that I have given you a meal and a place to wait out the storm? You must also steal my roses?”
   
“Please forgive me,” said the merchant. He had fallen to his knees. “I tried to find you to thank you for the meal. I will pay you for it, if you like. As for the rose, I only wished to have it for my youngest daughter. Her name is Beauty. Her sole wish when I left her was that I come back with a rose for her. Your gardens are so gorgeous. I did not think that you would miss just one rose.”

“You are quite full of apologies and ingratiation!” Beast said. “But that will not save you from the punishment that you deserve!”
   
“Oh, forgive me,” said the man. “If not for my own sake, then for the sake of my daughters. If I do not go home, there will be no one to support them.”
   
There was a long pause. Then the Beast spoke again. “I will forgive you,” he said. “But that’s on one condition. You must send one of your daughters to live with me. Go and see if any of them is brave enough, and loves you enough, to save you from a life in my castle! If one of them will come, you may send her in your place. If not, then you must come back and face your castigation.”
   
When the storm had passed, the merchant went back home. He gave his daughters their gifts. There was a gown for the eldest. There was a diamond necklace for the second. And there was a rose for Beauty.
   
The older sisters were pleased. But Beauty could sense that something was wrong. “Father,” she said. “Why did you sigh so deeply when you gave me that pretty rose?”
   
“In a few days I will tell you,” said their father. “But for now, let’s just enjoy being with each other once more.”
   
To be continued below.

    
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

Even More Fairy Tales And Tall Tales

Lesson 23 – Part Two

    
NEW WORDS: Bunyan, Larson, Pecos, Peterson, acquiescing, adios, adoration, allegation, amity, anthroposcopy, appearances, apprehension, assurances, athenaeum, attendants, backbreaker, beauty’s, beget, bickering, botherations, brawling, bucked, certitude, chapfallen, chastisement, coinage, colloquies, committal, compensated, consenting, cordiality, coyote’s, deceived, dexterity, disremembered, dissemble, doin, emboldened, endowments, enhancement, escapee, ever’thing, failing, flapjacks, forthright, fours, frying, fussing, gallivant, gettin, graciousness, guzzled, heightened, hyperbolic, imperceptible, inseparable, jubilate, kinks, lamentations, lassoed, logging, looped, lugubrious, lumberjacks, lumberman, lumbermen, meanness, mien, mustang, onslaught, overdone, overhearing, pacify, pales, pilfered, placidly, reciprocation, rejecting, reparation, sawmills, scorned, scudded, shuddering, sidestep, slobbery, sniffin, snowdrifts, sociable, squawking, stifled, supine, tenacious, ubiquitous, wildness, yahoo, yearn     
   
   

Story Three: “Beauty and the Beast”, Part Two
   
This continues the fairy tale that was started above.
    
It’s now a few days later. The merchant told his daughters what had happened to him in the rose garden at the beast’s castle. He told them how he had plucked the rose. He told them how he had been scorned by the beast. He said that he gave assurances to go back to the beast and accept his chastisement.
   
“Do you have to go?” pleaded the girls.
   
He said that the beast had made an allegation that there was just one way for him to sidestep it. That would be if one of them would be consenting to go and live with the beast. “But I am not acquiescing to that!” cried the merchant.
   
“I will go,” Beauty said placidly.
   
“No, Beauty,” said her father. “I am the one who pilfered the rose. I shall go back to the beast. I would rather go on my own for 100 years than send you.”
   
“No, Father,” said Beauty. “I want to go.” Her father tried to change her mind. But Beauty was tenacious in her committal.
   
A few days passed. Beauty and her father went back to the castle. When she first saw the Beast, Beauty could not help shuddering. But she tried to dissemble her fear. “Good evening, old man,” said the beast. “Is this your youngest daughter?”
   
“Yes,” said the merchant. “This is Beauty.” Beauty curtsied before the beast.
   
“Good evening, Beauty,” said the beast. “Are you here to take your father’s place? Will you live here, with me, in the castle?”
   
“Yes, I will,” said the girl.
   
The next day, the beast gave Beauty’s father a trunk. It was filled with gold coinage. Then he sent him on his way. Beauty watched her father ride off. She held back the tears. “Beauty,” said the beast. “Fear not. Things are not as bad as they may seem. You have made a reparation for your father’s sake. Your graciousness will be compensated. Listen to me and heed this advice. Do not be deceived by appearances. Follow the certitude of your heart, not your eyes.”
   
The next day, Beauty explored her new home. The beast had been forthright. Things were not as bad as she had feared. The palace was quite lovely. She found a huge athenaeum. It was filled with books that she had always wished to read. She went for a walk in the lovely gardens. Songbirds chirped her favorite tunes. It was time for dinner. Beauty was greeted by a staff of pleasant attendants. They prepared none other than her favorite meal.

“Good evening, Beauty,” said the beast. Beauty was still startled by the beast’s anthroposcopy. But the more time she spent with him, the more she found that he treated her with amity and cordiality. He pulled out her chair and sat next to her at dinner. He listened to her stories about her family. He spoke kindly to her while they dined. The dinner turned out to be less painful than Beauty had thought it would be.
   
The meal was over. It was time to say good night. The beast turned to Beauty and asked, “Do you love me, Beauty? Will you marry me?” Beauty did not know what to say. She was scared that the beast would be upset if she would be rejecting his offer. Seeing this, the beast said, “Say yes or no, without apprehension.”
   
Trusting his words, Beauty said, “No, thank you,” as gently as she could.
   
“Very well,” said the beast. “Good night, then.”
   
After that, each night was much the same. Beauty dined with the beast. The beast treated her with great kindness. She even began to enjoy their colloquies. Bit by bit, Beauty got used to the way he looked. Despite his appearance, Beauty found the beast to be quite sociable. And his elegant mien put her fears to rest.
   
But when the meal was over and it was time to say good night, the beast always turned to her and asked, “Do you love me, Beauty? Will you marry me?” She cared for him more and more with each passing day. But Beauty always felt that, as hard as it was, the only reciprocation that she could give was “no, thank you.”
   
One night, the beast noticed a lugubrious look on Beauty’s face. “Beauty,” he said, “I cannot bear to see you chapfallen. What is the matter?”
   
“Oh!” she said, wiping away a tear, “I am just sad because I miss my family.” She paused, then said, “especially my father. He is getting older. And if his health is failing, I worry that he may need me. If I could just see him to make sure that he is well.”
   
“But, Beauty,” said the beast, “if you leave me, I fear that I will never see you again. And then I will be alone till the end of time.”
   
“Dear Beast,” said Beauty softly, “I do not want to leave you. I would be very sad if I could not see you again. But I yearn to see my father. Could you let me go for just one month? I promise to come back and stay with you for the rest of my life.”

“Very well,” sighed the beast. “But remember your promise. And wear this locket as a constant reminder. When you want to come back, simply open the locket. Then say the words ‘I wish to go back to the beast’.”
   
Beauty awoke the next morning. She was in her father’s house. It was not the old country cottage. It was a fine new house in the city. He had bought it with the riches that the beast had given him. Her father hugged her. He wept for joy when he saw her.
   
Soon Beauty’s sisters came to visit with their new husbands. They seemed to be happy on the surface. But Beauty could tell that they were not. One sister had married a very handsome man. But he was so in love with his own face that he thought of nothing else. The other sister had married a clever man. But he entertained himself at others’ expense.
   
Day after day, Beauty enjoyed being with her father. She spent her time doing whatever she could to help him. The time came for her to return to the beast. But she found that she could not bring herself to say good-bye to her father. Each day she told herself, “Today I will go back.” But each night she put it off again.
   
Then one night, she dreamed that she was wandering in the garden around the beast’s castle. She suddenly heard painful lamentations. She followed the sounds. She found the beast lying on the ground. It seemed as though he was hurting.
   
Beauty awoke with a start. “Oh, how could I do this to my poor Beast?” she cried. “It does not matter that he is not handsome. Why have I been refusing to marry him? I would be better off with him than with someone like my sisters have married. The beast is honest and good. And that matters more than anything else.”
   
She opened the locket hanging around her neck. She said firmly, “I wish to go back to the beast.” In an instant, she found herself at the palace. But where was the beast? Beauty ran through the rooms of the castle. She kept calling for the beast. There was no answer. Then she recalled her dream. She ran to the garden. There she found the beast lying supine on the ground.

Beauty cried, “No, no, he is.” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence. “It is all my fault!” She fell to the ground. She took him in her arms. Beast lay still as Beauty’s tears fell upon his face. Then he slowly opened his eyes. “Oh, Beast,” Beauty sobbed. “How you frightened me! Thank goodness you are still alive. I never knew how much I loved you until now, when I feared that it was too late.”
   
In a faint voice, Beast said, “Beauty, I was dying because I thought that you had disremembered your promise. But you have come back. Can you really love such an appalling creature as I am?”
   
“Yes!” said Beauty. “I do love you!”
   
Then once again the beast asked, “Beauty, will you marry me?”
   
“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, Beast, I will marry you!” Before she finished speaking, a flash of light beamed around her. Beauty gasped. She covered her eyes to shield them from the bright light. Then she opened her eyes again. She no longer saw the beast. But there, lying at her feet, was a handsome prince.
   
“What has happened to my beast?” she asked the stranger. She noticed that there was something familiar about his eyes.
   
“I was the beast,” said the prince. “A fairy put a spell on me. She changed me into a beast until someone would agree to marry me. You are the only one who has been good enough to see past my appearance and into my heart.”
   
Beauty gave the young prince her hand to help him to his feet. They then walked side-by-side into the castle. They were married the very next day. Beauty’s whole family was there to help jubilate with them. And they lived happily ever after.
   
What is the lesson in this story? It is hard to see who somebody is just from how they look. And it is worth it to look past appearance and see to someone’s heart. That’s who they really are.

Story Four: Paul Bunyan
   
This is clearly a legend. Paul Bunyan was a giant lumberjack. It was told that he had endowments that allowed him to do amazing things that other people could only dream of. Much of the story is heightened, or overdone, just to tell the tale.
     
Even as a baby, Paul Bunyan was mighty big. How big? Well, he was so big that his parents had to use a covered wagon for his cradle. As you might think, young Paul had a big appetite. He guzzled down five barrels of porridge a day. And his parents had to milk four dozen cows each morning and evening. That was just to keep his baby bottle filled.
   
Paul was so big that it caused some botherations in the small town in Maine where he grew up. When he sneezed, he blew the birds from Maine to California. When he snored, the neighbors ran out of their houses hollering, “Earthquake! Earthquake!”
   
After that, Paul’s father thought that it might be better if Paul did not sleep in town. He built a cot on a large raft for Paul. He floated it off the coast. Paul slept on the raft for a few nights. But the floating cot did not work out. Paul would turn over in his sleep. That would beget gigantic waves that knocked down houses on the coast.
   
After some time, Paul’s father thought that the East Coast was just too small for Paul. The only sensible thing to do was to move out West. So, the Bunyan family moved to Minnesota. In those days, Minnesota was full of logging camps, sawmills, and lumberjacks. Americans were moving west and “building the country.” They had to cut down a lot of trees. These would help to make their homes, not to mention their schools, churches, boats, and furniture.
   
When he grew up, Paul went to work as a lumberman. And what a lumberjack he proved to be! He made himself a giant axe. It had a handle carved out of a full-grown hickory tree. He could bring down a giant tree with a single swing of his axe. As the tree tipped over, he would yell, “Timber!” That’s so that the other lumbermen had time to get out of the way.
   
Everyone looked up to Paul Bunyan – way up! The other lumberjacks were full of adoration for him. The bosses were grateful for the amazing amount of work that he could do in a day.
   
Paul had a big heart, too. But one thing that he always wished for was a true friend. There simply wasn’t anyone else his size who could be his friend. That all changed during the winter of the Big Blue Snow.

It was called the winter of the Big Blue Snow. That’s because it was so cold that everyone shivered and turned blue. Even the snow shivered and turned blue. One day, Paul was making his way through the blue snowdrifts. He heard a stifled whimper. He followed the noise. Soon, he saw two big, blue, furry things. That were sticking up out of the snow. He reached down and gave a pull.
   
It turned out that the two big, blue, furry things were two big, blue ears. And connected to the big, blue ears was a giant, blue, baby ox! Paul yelled, “The poor little fellow is half frozen!” He carried the blue ox home. He wrapped him in blankets. He fed him.
   
The baby ox was so content that he took a long nap in Paul’s big, strong arms. When he woke up, he looked up at Paul. And do you know what he said? “Mama! Mama!” Then he gave Paul a big, slobbery lick on the face.
   
Paul laughed and said, “Babe, we’re gonna be great friends!” And they were. In fact, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox were soon inseparable. Each place that Paul went, Babe went, too.
   
The two of them worked together in the lumber camps. Paul chopped down the trees. Then Babe hauled them to the river. He dropped them in so that they could float downstream to a sawmill. Together, Paul and Babe did the work of a hundred men.
   
The lumber company found that the best way to keep Paul happy was through his stomach. So, they hired a special cook to feed Paul and Babe. The cook’s name was Sourdough Sam. Sam was known for the huge flapjacks that he cooked in the world’s biggest frying pan.
   
The colossal pan sat on an enormous cast iron frame. Each morning, Sourdough Sam would build a raging forest fire underneath the pan. Then he would call for his two helpers. They were Lars Larson and Pete Peterson. Lars and Pete would grease up the pan. They’d tie slabs of bacon to their feet. Then they’d skate back and forth across the sizzling pan. Then Sam would make a great big stack of pancakes for Paul. And he’d make an even larger stack for Babe.
   
Thanks to Sourdough Sam and his overgrown flapjacks, Babe, over time, grew to be even bigger than Paul. He was so big that, if you were standing at his front legs, you had to use a telescope to see all the way to his back legs. In fact, he was so heavy that his footprints filled up with water and turned into lakes. In fact, there are more than 10,000 lakes in Minnesota today. Most of them were created by Babe the Blue Ox back in the frontier days.

Babe and Paul helped the lumbermen solve all sorts of problems. Once there was a river that was full of twists and turns. Sometimes the trees would get stuck in the turns. They’d never make it downstream to the sawmill. But Paul Bunyan thought of a way to fix that! He went to one end of the river. He sent Babe to the other end. Paul grabbed the river and pulled in one direction. Babe pulled the other end in the opposite direction. Then, snap! Just like that, all of the kinks were pulled out. And the river was as straight as an axe handle.
   
Of course, this tightening operation left the river a good deal longer than it had been before. So, there was a lot of extra water lying around. Paul and Babe worked together to dig five big holes to hold all of the extra water. Nowadays these are called the Great Lakes.
   
One day, the logging bosses got to talking. One of them said that the U.S. was a fine country, to be sure. But it could still stand a little enhancement. For one thing, it could use a few more rivers. And what it really needed was a big river running right down the middle of the country. That would be all the way from Minnesota down to New Orleans. “What if we had a river like that?” the man said. “We could ship timber down to New Orleans and all around the world!”
   
Paul was overhearing this conversation. He told the bosses that he’d see what he could do. He hitched up Babe. They started plowing south. As they plowed, they threw a great mound of dirt and rocks to the right. They threw a smaller mound to the left. On the right side they made the Rocky Mountains. And on the left side they made the Appalachian Mountains.
   
Paul Bunyan and Babe did not stop till they had plowed a channel all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico. And there’s a river that flows in that channel nowadays. That’s what we call the Mississippi River.
   
From that day on, Paul and Babe went around the country. They used their size and strength to help anyone who needed it. Later, they dug the Grand Canyon. That’s they made their way to the West Coast of California. And when the wind blows just right from the west, you can still smell those infamous, colossal pancakes cooking on the frontier.
   
What’s this story supposed to tell? Well, Paul Bunyan and Babe might not have been real. But their names were ubiquitous among lumberjacks on the American frontier. That kept them going as America moved out west. We were able to use the chopped lumber to build a nation.

Story Five: Pecos Bill
   
According to legend, Pecos Bill was a cowboy. He worked on a ranch and took care of cows. Again, much of the tale is hyperbolic, just to tell the tale.
   
The greatest cowboy that ever lived was the one they called Pecos Bill. Bill was born in East Texas. He might have lived there his whole life. But one day his Pa came running out of the house. He was shouting to his Ma, “Pack up ever’thing we got, Ma! There’s neighbors moved in near about fifty miles away. And it’s gettin’ too crowded around here.”
   
So, Bill’s folks loaded a covered wagon with everything they owned. They headed west. It was a long, hard trip. The kids were packed in the back of the wagon. There were eighteen of them! There was bickering and squawking and brawling as the wagon bounced along. The kids were so loud that Bill’s ma said that you couldn’t hear the thunder over the noise.
   
One day the wagon hit a rock. Little Bill fell right out. With all the fussing and fighting, no one noticed. The wagon just kept on going. So, Little Bill found himself sitting in the dirt along the banks of the Pecos River. And that’s how he came to be named “Pecos” Bill. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
   
Little Bill was not your average baby. He did not cry. He just crawled along on the dusty plain. He kept his eyes peeled for what might come along. And the first thing to come along was a coyote. The coyote saw this dirty, naked little creature crawling around on all fours. She thought that he was a cute little animal. And that was even if his ears were mighty small.
   
Well, Little Bill reached up. He patted the coyote’s head and said, “Nice doggie!” The doggie – I mean coyote – liked Little Bill. She took him home. She raised him with her pups. The coyotes taught Bill to gallivant about the prairies and to howl at the moon. They taught him the secrets of hunting, how to leap like an antelope, and to run like the wind. They taught him how to chase lizards and lie so still that he was almost imperceptible.
   
The years went by – eighteen of them to be exact. And Bill grew up strong and healthy. One day he was out hunting along the Pecos River. He saw a most unusual sight. It seemed to be a big creature with four legs. Or was it six legs? And why did it have one head in front and another on top? Well, it turned out to be a horse with a man riding it. That’s something that Bill had not seen before. Bill scudded around the horse a few times. Then he slowly crept forward and took a sniff of the man’s boot.

“Boy,” said the man. “What are you doin’ scampering around down there in your birthday suit?”
   
“Sniffin’,” said Bill. “I’m a coyote!”
   
“No, you ain’t,” said the man. “You’re a man, like me.”
   
“No!” howled Bill. “Coyote!”
   
“What makes you think that you’re a coyote?” asked the man.
   
“I have fleas!” said Bill.
   
“So what?” said the man. “Lots of men here in Texas have fleas.” But Bill was not persuaded. He was sure that he was a coyote. “Here’s the thing,” said the man. “Coyotes have pointy ears and big bushy tails. And you don’t.”
   
“Yes, I do!” cried Bill. He felt sure he had a tail, just like all the other coyotes. So, he looked over his shoulder. But he could not see one. He reached back to grab his tail. But he could not feel one. He backed up to the river. He looked for his tail in the reflection. But it was not there. Bill was shocked. He thought for a bit. Then he decided that the man must be right. If he did not have a tail, he could not be a coyote. If he was not a coyote, then he must be a man.
   
Bill decided that he’d have to say adios to his four-legged friends. He would try to start living as a man. So, he went to stay with the man. The man just so happened to be a cowboy. The man gave Bill some clothes to wear and a horse to ride. He also gave him a nickname. That was “Pecos Bill.”
   
At first Bill had trouble living like a man. He could not stand the way his clothes scratched and pulled at his skin. He did not like the way that his boots came between his bare feet and the good old dirt. And he could not see the need for a knife or fork. It was just as easy to use your fingers to pick up your meat and tear it with your teeth.
   
But Bill learned to act like a man. Of course, he still had a spark of wildness in him. And it would flash out from time to time. One day he was out riding on his horse. He was surprised by a mountain lion. The lion scared Bill’s horse away. He charged right at Bill. But Pecos Bill was too quick for that mountain lion. He dodged the big cat. Then he hopped right onto his back.
   
The mountain lion was not happy, no sir. He bucked. He snarled. He tried to twist around and bite Bill. Bill held on to the lion’s neck with one hand. With his other hand, he waved his cowboy hat in the air and shouted “Yahoo!” The lion did everything that he could to shake Bill off, but it was no use. Finally, he gave in and let Bill ride him. Then, Bill put a saddle on the lion and rode him like a horse. Bill had tamed the mountain lion.

Another day, Pecos Bill had to deal with the onslaught of a giant rattlesnake. This snake was a mean old fellow who thought that he was the king of the whole desert. He struck at Bill’s heel. But Pecos Bill was too quick for that rattlesnake. He grabbed the rattler by the neck and squeezed him hard. The snake wriggled and writhed in Bill’s grip. “Say ‘uncle’ if you’ve had enough!” said Bill.
   
“G-g-g-uncle!” said the snake, gurgling out the sounds as best as he could. Bill relaxed his grip a bit and asked the rattler, “Who’s the boss around here?”
   
“I was.” said the snake. “But now you are.”
   
“Well then,” said Pecos Bill, “How’d you like to work for me?”
   
“Sure thing!” said the rattler. The rattler just looked at Pecos Bill with admiration and purred like a kitten. Pecos Bill had squeezed all the meanness right out of that snake!
   
Next, Pecos Bill rolled the rattler up into a coil and rode away on his mountain lion. On the way back to camp, he spotted a cow that was an escapee. He grabbed the rattler and tied a loop at one end of him to make a lasso. Then he rode after the cow, swinging his lasso above his head. When he was close enough, he tossed the looped end of the snake over the cow. Pecos Bill jumped off the mountain lion and pulled the lasso tight. He stopped the runaway cow right in his tracks.
   
Pecos Bill brought the cow back to his friend, the cowboy. After that, he taught all the cowboys at the ranch how to use a lasso to catch a runaway cow. He taught them other things, too. He taught them how to pacify wild horses by riding them, just as he had done with the mountain lion. He even taught them how to sing cowboy songs around the campfire at night. He sang in a voice that sounded a lot like a lonesome coyote howling at the moon.
   
Pecos Bill was famous for his riding dexterity. He once rode a wild mustang – called the “Backbreaker” – that no one else could ride. But that story pales in comparison to the time he rode something that no other man had before. And I reckon no man ever will again. He rode a cyclone! That’s right. Pecos Bill lassoed a cyclone with his rattlesnake lasso and jumped on its rip-roaring back. The cyclone spun furiously, trying to throw Bill off.
   
It went spinning this way and that way across the deserts of Arizona. It tried to knock Bill off by rising up into the air and digging down into the ground. Pecos Bill didn’t let go until the cyclone spun itself out of energy. By that time, the two of them had carved out a deep canyon. If you ever go to Arizona, you can still see that canyon today. It’s called the Grand Canyon.
   
What’s this story supposed to tell? Well, it’s one way of looking at life on the American frontier, which was wild and free. Then you take that freedom and learn how to use it. Like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill wasn’t a real person. But he emboldened lots of cowboys who heard his story.

    
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

Even More Fairy Tales And Tall Tales

Lesson 24 – Part Three

    
NEW WORDS: Webb, abated, ascending, attainments, audacious, brassy, careening, choo, chugga, chugged, chuggin, compeer, cosmos, dauntlessness, depots, detonations, dimness, divulged, drivin, dynamiting, explosives, expounds, fateful, fireman, fireman’s, highballing, hurtle, impetus, inflated, kaboom, knockin, locomotives, nothin, pileup, pridefulness, railroaders, rasped, roarin, rubble, segregated, shoveled, shoveling, slumbers, southbound, steamin, stoking, storied, strikin, substituting, supersede, surmounting, tenacity, throttle, unbeatable, unheated, ventilated, vindicated, wheezing, whippoorwill, worksite     
   
   

Story Six: John Henry
   
John Henry was a railroad worker. He dug tunnels and laid down tracks for the trains to follow. This tall tale is still full of exaggeration. But there are some historians who believe that John Henry and the story might have really happened.

In the 1860s, the U.S. was growing quickly. Immigrants were pouring in, and railroad companies were laying train tracks that would carry settlers west. One of the railroad companies was called the Chesapeake & Ohio, or the C&O for short. The C&O Railroad was named for the two bodies of water it was intended to connect. That’s the Chesapeake Bay along the east coast and the Ohio River in the West.
   
The engineers who planned the C&O Railroad knew that they’d have to be surmounting huge issues. Getting trains from the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River would be hard. No challenge was greater than this one. They had to run their tracks through the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachians were like a big wall that segregated the east from the west.
   
At times, when the mountains were rolling and more like hills, the C&O workers were able to lay tracks over the top of them. Other times they were able to lay track that zig-zagged around the mountains, like a snake. But some mountains were too tall to go over. And they were too big to go around. In those cases, the only solution was to dig a tunnel right through the mountain.
   
Digging tunnels was dangerous work. The tunnels were dark and poorly ventilated. That means that there was barely enough fresh air inside the tunnels for the workers to breathe. And lots of workers were killed by sudden cave-ins.
   
To dig the tunnels as fast as they could, railroad workers worked in teams of two. One man would crouch down and hold a steel spike. Then the other man would hit the spike with a big hammer. The first man would twist the spike as much as he could. Then his compeer would hit the spike with his hammer again.
   
The two men would work with each other. They’d be banging and twisting until they had driven the spike deep into the rock. Then they would pull out the spike, move to another spot, and start to dig a new hole. After a while, the rock would be full of holes. It would be like a piece of Swiss cheese.
   
Next, the dynamiting men would take over. They would pack dynamite into the holes and detonate the explosives – KABOOM! The detonations would break up the solid rock into rubble. Then the workers would haul away the rubble. And then they would start digging again.

To make the long, hard day’s work go by faster, the railroad workers used to have contests. They would pick two teams. They’d see which team could drive its spike farther into the mountain in a set amount of time. The winners of these contests became heroes. People would tell stories about these “steel-driving” men and their amazing attainments.
   
Another thing the workers did to pass the time was to sing songs. Sometimes they would even sing songs about other steel-driving men.
   
One of these steel-driving men was named John Henry. No one knew for sure where he was from. Some said that he was from Georgia. Some said that he was from Tennessee. Others said that he was a Virginia man.
   
As it turns out, it seems likely that he was a former slave. He seems to have started working on the railroads sometime after the end of the Civil War. For years, folks thought that John Henry worked on the Big Bend Tunnel. That was on the C&O line in what is now West Virginia. But now we think that he more likely worked on the Lewis Tunnel in Virginia.
   
There’s one thing that we are sure of. And that is that John Henry was a legend among railway workers. They sang a song that tells the story about how he was born with a hammer in his hand.
   
John Henry became known as the most audacious man who had ever worked on the railroad. Even as a young boy he could do the work of a man. They said he had never been beaten in a steel-driving competition. They said he hit the spike so hard that sparks flew through the air. They said that John Henry could swing a ten-pound hammer from sunup to sundown and not even get tired.
   
At first, most of the work on the tunnels was done by hand, by workers like John Henry. But this began to change. Machines were invented that could do some of the work. One of these machines was a steam drill. This was a drill that was powered by a steam engine.
   
The first steam drills were pretty good, but they were not great. The steam drills could drive a spike into the mountain for sure. But the quality was not as good as two strong, experienced railway workers like John Henry and his partner.
   
Over time, the machines got better. They began to supersede the men who worked on the railroad tunnels.

One day, the captain of John Henry’s work team brought a steam drill to the worksite. He bet that the steam drill could drive steel better than John Henry could. John Henry agreed to compete against the steam drill. And he swore that he would do his best to beat it. He said to the captain,
   
“Well, a man ain’t nothin’ but a man.

But before I let a steam drill beat me down,

I’ll die with a hammer in my hand.

Oh, oh! I’ll die with a hammer in my hand.”
   
One of the bosses blew a whistle. John Henry went to work driving steel the old-fashioned way. He used a hammer and a spike. The captain started up the steam drill. It rattled away beside John Henry. It was belching steam and banging away at the mountain.
   
The man and the machine worked side-by-side for several hours. Then the boss blew his whistle again. The bosses took measurements. Then they divulged the results. John Henry had driven his spike a total of fifteen feet into the mountain. And the steam drill? It had drilled just nine feet. John Henry had won! He had beaten the steam drill!
   
“Now the man that invented the steam drill,

He thought he was mighty fine.

But John Henry drove his fifteen feet

And the steam drill only made nine.

Oh, oh! The steam drill only made nine!”
   
The other railway workers roared. They were excited that John Henry had won. In a way, they felt vindicated. He had shown that a hard worker was better than a machine! But John Henry himself was in no condition to celebrate. He had worked so hard that he had suffered a heart attack.
   
“John Henry hammered in the mountains,

And his hammer was strikin’ fire.

Well, he hammered so hard that it broke his poor heart,

And he laid down his hammer and he died.

Oh, oh! He laid down his hammer and he died.”
   
The railway men carried John Henry out of the tunnel. They laid him to rest with other workers who had died. But the legend of John Henry lived on. The C&O Railroad was completed a couple of years later. And for years to come, whenever locomotives went down the C&O line past the tunnel that they thought John Henry helped dig, those who knew the story would say, “There lies John Henry, the king of the steel-driving men!”
   
“They took John Henry down the tunnel,

And they buried him in the sand.

And every locomotive comes a-roarin’ by

Says, “Yonder lies a steel-drivin’ man!

Oh, oh, yonder lies a steel-drivin’ man.”
   
What’s this story supposed to tell? Well, it’s another tale to inspire the men and women of America. They’d hear the ballad of John Henry and think that they, too, could do anything as long as they didn’t give up.

Story Seven: Casey Jones
   
Let’s meet John Luther “Casey” Jones. He was a man from Kentucky. He drove trains across the state of Illinois. He became well-known for his dauntlessness and tenacity. Casey Jones was a real person who did real, heroic things. While the story below is inflated, it is based on something that did happen.
   
Now, gather ’round, friends, for I want to tell you a story. It’s a story of a storied engineer. His name was Casey Jones, and there’s never been a man who could drive a train as fast or as well. Folks say that Casey Jones could drive a train before he could walk. And when he was a baby, he said “choo-choo” instead of “goo-goo.”
   
When Casey was a young man, he grew up in Kentucky. The railroad was the fastest way of getting around back then. This was back before the days of airplanes or rocket ships. There were no cars and trucks. There were just horse-drawn vehicles and the mighty iron horse, as it was called. That is, of course, the locomotive.
   
Casey was an engineer for the Illinois Central Railroad. He loved to sit way up in the cabin of the train. He’d have one hand on the whistle and one hand on the brake. When the tracks were straight and clear, Casey would pull on the throttle. The train would take off like a rocket ascending into the cosmos.
   
When he came into train depots, he would pull on the brake and bring the train to a sudden stop. Casey loved to watch the trees and fields go whizzing by as he zoomed through the countryside. He loved to make the train’s whistle blow. And there was no other engineer who could blow the train whistle quite the way that Casey did. Casey’s whistle started out soft, like a whippoorwill. Then it rose to a howl. It was like a coyote crying in the night. Finally, it abated to a quiet whisper.
   
People in town always knew when Casey was coming. Even before they could see his train, they could hear it. They’d hear the powerful chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga. It would be getting louder and louder. Then they’d hear that brassy whistle sound.

Some said that Casey’s whistle had magic powers. They said that when Casey blew his whistle, babies would wake up from their naps, but they would not cry. Instead, they’d make little chugga-chugga, whoo-whoo sounds. Then they’d fall right back to sleep. When Casey blew his whistle, the cows would give an extra quart of milk. And the chickens would lay at least a dozen eggs each. And, here’s how the story goes. If you cracked one of those eggs in an unheated frying pan and put out a piece of plain bread, just as soon as Casey went careening by, there in that pan would be a nicely fried egg, over-easy, and on the side, a plate of hot buttered toast.
   
Now the impetus for Casey to drive so fast was simple. He enjoyed great pridefulness in always being on time. Casey wished to make sure that he got that train where it was going, when it was supposed to be there, no matter what. When he started out on a run, the railroaders would wave and yell, “Bring her in on time, Casey!” And they knew that he would.
   
But Casey could not make that train go that fast with his good looks. No, Casey needed a good fireman to help him. And he had one of the best in Sim Webb. The firemen on a train did not put out fires like you might think. The fireman’s job was to keep the fire in the engine burning by shoveling coal into it.
   
When the flames were a-roarin’, that made a lot of steam. And that’s what made the train go fast. No doubt about it, Sim Webb was a first-rate fireman. He could shovel coal faster than anyone on either side of the Mississippi. The faster that Sim shoveled, the faster Casey could drive the train. Sim Webb kept the fire good and hot. And Casey Jones got their trains in on time. Together, they were an unbeatable team.
   
There was just one day that Casey and Sim almost didn’t make it to the station on time. They were carrying a load of mail to Memphis, Tennessee. And it was raining cats and dogs.
   
“The rain had been falling for five or six weeks,

And the railroad track was like the bed of a creek.”
   
At the station in Memphis, the railroad men waited for Casey to arrive. Some said, “There’s no way that he can make it on time with all this rain. He’ll have to slow down.”

But others said, “Just you wait. He’ll make it. Casey Jones always makes it on time.” And sure enough, just then they saw a light on the tracks up ahead. And they heard the lonesome whistle that could only be Casey Jones. The train pulled into the station, dripping wet, wheezing hard, but right on time.
   
Casey and Sim were dog tired. They were more than ready for good night’s slumbers. But they’d hardly settled into their beds when there was a knock at the door. Word came that the engineer who was supposed to drive the train on the southbound run was sick.
   
Well, they didn’t even have to ask Casey if he would be substituting for the man. Tired as he was, Casey got dressed and headed for the station. And when he got there, he found Sim Webb. He was already stoking the fire with coal. He was getting the train ready to carry mail, packages of freight, and passengers, as well.
   
Now, friends, here’s where I have to tell you the sad part of this story. This is about how Casey met his end. As Casey mounted to the cabin and took the throttle in his hand, he heard someone shout, “Casey, you’re already more than an hour and a half late.” But Casey just smiled. He thought to himself, “I guess that means that I’ll have to go just a little faster.”
   
Casey opened up the throttle. The train would now hurtle into the dark, wet night. Sim Webb shoveled the coal with all his might, and the train chugged on, faster and faster.
   
“Casey!” Sim yelled. “You’re running too fast.”

But Casey said, “Fireman, don’t you fret,

Keep knockin’ at the fire door, and don’t give up yet.

I’m gonna run this train until she leaves the rail,

Or we make it on time with the southbound mail.”
   
They drove on. The train gained speed until it was flying faster than the speed of light. Then Casey said,
   
“I believe we’ll make it through,

For the engine is a-steamin’ better than I ever knew!”
   
Casey got the signal that the tracks were clear up ahead. So, he was “highballing” down the tracks, pushing that train just as fast as it would go. He was going so fast that it looked like they might even make it on time. Just then, as they rasped around a curve, through the dimness of the night, Casey saw a light up ahead. He knew that light was not supposed to be there, not on this track.

At that point, Casey knew. There was a broken-down freight train stuck on the track just ahead. And he was speeding straight toward it! Casey pulled the brake as hard as he could. He yelled to his partner, “Jump, Sim!”
   
“Casey, you come on!” replied Sim.
   
“Jump!” Casey shouted, and in the blink of an eye, Sim jumped. But Casey stayed on the train. He knew that he could not stop the train in time. But he knew that he had to slow it down. He knew that if he jumped and let go of the brake, his train would crash into the other train at a dangerously high speed. So, Casey pulled on the brake with all his might. A terrible screeching, squealing sound ripped through the darkness. Then came the pileup.
   
“The trains, they met in the middle of a hill

In a head-on tangle that was bound to spill.

He tried to do his duty, the men all said,

But Casey Jones, he ended up dead.”
   
Poor Casey! When they found him, they said that he had one hand still on the brake and one hand tight on the whistle. He was trying to stop his train as best he could and give warning to the other train.
   
Casey Jones did not survive that fateful ride. But he was the only person who died in the crash. Casey’s bravery that night saved all of the passengers on both trains, and his fireman Sim.
   
After that, thanks to Sim Webb keeping the story alive, people would tell stories about the brave engineer named Casey Jones. They even made up songs about him. You’ve already heard parts of one of them. Here’s how it ends,
   
“Casey Jones, mounted to the cabin.

Casey Jones, throttle in his hand.

Casey Jones, mounted to the cabin.

Took a trip to the Promised Land.”
   
They say that if you look up in the sky on a clear night and see a flash of light across the sky, well, that might be a shooting star. But then again, it might be Casey Jones. He’s roaring across the sky, chugga-chugga, chugga-chuggin’, on time, till the end of time.
   
What’s this story supposed to tell? Well, it actually happened, and so it expounds on the actions of a brave man who gave his life to save everyone else on those trains.

    
   
*********

Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

The United States Constitution

Lesson 25 – Part One

    
NEW WORDS: Carta, Hamilton’s, Magna, Shays’s, State’s, actionable, actuated, administrators, advisers, aides, appellation, arbitrate, aspirations, assemblages, centralized, championing, checklist, chronicled, cogent, commensurate, commitments, complacent, complementary, conceives, concordance, confederation, constitutions, consummate, contradicted, criticality, declarations, delegates, deliberating, desist, devotee, doable, drafting, elemental, eliminates, emigrated, enact, enclave, endeavor, enduringly, enervation, excogitating, excoriate, expunged, fathoming, faulty, fledged, gall, galvanized, governance, governing, grappling, guaranteeing, habitually, headmost, hindrance, hinging, histories, immaterial, impartial, implied, impotent, infliction, inherently, insurgence, insurgents, interrelated, intruding, invalid, kosher, legislatures, liabilities, likenesses, mandate, miscarried, misuse, misuses, mobilize, navies, ordinance, peaceably, pored, prescribe, proscribe, prosperously, protectorate, quarrels, ratified, reigned, reinstated, renegade, resented, residency, revising, rightful, ruminating, sensibleness, slaveholders, statutory, striving, summarized, supplant, taverns, thirties, threatens, titleholders, twenties, tyrants, unblurred, unslaked, zeroed
   
    

Chapter One: The Leadership Conceives of Self-Rule
     
The Big Question: What is “self-government?” And why was it such a new thought?
   
America had hope for self-determination. This thought got its start more than 200 years ago. It was when there were 13 colonies. They resented the fact that they had no say in British rules that were an infliction upon their freedoms. This thought was built on by Thomas Jefferson. That’s when he was drafting the Declaration of Independence. And these aspirations were fought for in the American Revolution. These thoughts were then set down in the Constitution of the U.S.
   
One of the thoughts that Jefferson wrote of is this. “All men are created equal.” Of course, he did not mean that each person has commensurate talents. One person could run faster – or jump higher – than another. And a person could be better in math or science or music. What he implied is that each person is born with the SAME RIGHTS as any other. He wrote that some of these rights are “unalienable.” That means that no one can take them away. Not a king or any ruler! He wrote about what these rights inherently were. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
   
He was not composing these thoughts just on the day that he sat down to write the Declaration. He had been ruminating about them for a long time. So had lots of Americans. These thoughts were almost renegade, for sure. They would enduringly change the way that people thought about their governance. And that’s not just Americans. That’s people all over the world. Jefferson zeroed in on three key thoughts about government.
   
First was the main goal of government. That’s the reason that we have government in the first place. It must be championing the rights of the people. What if a government fails to protect those rights. Or worse, what if it eliminates them? The people have the right to get rid of that government! Then they may build a new one. Wasn’t that what the American Revolution was all about?
   
Second, governments get “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The power of government comes from the people themselves. They are “the governed.” It’s the people who say what powers their government should have. What if the people do not give their concordance? What if they say that the government can’t have this or that power? Then the government does not have it!

This thought is based on what is known as “social contract theory.” The people enter into a contract to give power to a government. What if government misuses that power? Then the contract is faulty. So, the power is reinstated to the people. They can change the contract. Or they can enter into a new one. Now, that is a thought with lots of power! It is one of the major thoughts in all of human history.
   
The third key thought was “limited government.” This says that people should have the right to limit, or restrict, the power of their government. In 1776, when Jefferson wrote the Declaration, this was not a brand-new thought. A few folks in Europe had written books about it. A few nations, like England, had taken actionable steps toward limited government.
   
For the most part, though, this had not been put into practice. Kings, conquerors, and tyrants of all kinds had reigned over governments for 100s of years. They had not asked normal folks for their consent. Some rulers had the gall to make declarations that they got their power from God. These were called “divine right rulers.” Such rulers just did not care about the needs and wants of normal folks. But in the Declaration, Jefferson made it cogent that the people DO count.
   
After 1776, Americans had a chance to take the thought of limited government to a whole new level. The Declaration made a list of all of the things that the king and his Parliament had done wrong. So, they claimed that the contract was invalid. Thus, the 13 Colonies were no more a part of England. Each one was now a free state. So, each state had to build a new government on its own.
   
What came next was unheard of. In each state, normal folks talked and debated. What should the new government be like? How much power should the people give these governments? What is the best way to protect the rights of the people? Which of the old British ways should be kept? How long should our representatives in government serve? How should they be picked? Should our state have a governor? And if so, how long should they serve? What power should the courts have? How should the new government be formed? And who should be part of that work?
   
Back and forth these talks went. These thoughts were exchanged in newspapers. There was talk in the taverns. There was talk in homes. The old colonial assemblies held key assemblages. They talked back and forth about what to do next.

You will meet James Madison in a bit. He wrote, “It is the first instance, since the creation of the world, that free inhabitants have been seen deliberating on a form of government.” He was right. The world had not seen something like this. This had never been done. Americans knew that they were engaged in a great test. Lots of them did not think that they’d get it all right the first time. But that was all right. The key thing was to start. If there was a need to deal with change, they could do that later. After all, they were “the people!”

Chapter Two: New Constitutions for the States
   
The Big Question: What is a republic? What is a republican form of government?
   
Americans got set to make constitutions for their new states. A constitution is a plan of government. It’s a bit like an outline. It writes down what powers the government will have and will not have. It says what the parts of the government will be. It lays out the commitments for each part. One part will enact the laws. A second part will see that they are carried out. And a third part will clear up debates about what a certain law means.
   
So, you see, a constitution is like a law. But it is higher than “normal” laws. It’s a kind of fundamental law. Normal laws must be complementary with it. They must “get along with” the underlying law. What if they don’t fit in with the “outline?” Then they’re not statutory.
   
You might think of a constitution as the framework of a house. Then the “normal” laws are the furniture. The outside walls, the roof, and the inside walls give you the elemental form of the house. That’s your constitution. You then put in your furniture. Those are your normal laws.
   
From time to time, you may need to change the furniture. Your needs might have changed. You may need a bed instead of a crib. Or the furniture is broken. Thus, it needs to be replaced. You can do that. There’s one thing that you can’t do, though. That’s to bring in furniture that’s too big for the room. It has to fit in the room. What if it does not fit? Then you can’t use it.
   
You get it now, right? It’s like the form of the house. The constitution sets limits on what you can put inside. As long as a law fits inside the constitution, then the law is kosher. What if it does not fit with the constitution? Then the law is deemed “unconstitutional.” That means that such a law does not have to be obeyed.
   
Does that mean that once you have the “form,” the constitution, you can’t change it? No, it does not! You CAN change it. That’s just like you can add a room on to a house. Or you can move around some inside walls. But that’s a much harder job than changing furniture. It’s not a job that you do with ease, or that you do habitually.

“Rights of Englishmen” – and More
   
In each of the 13 states, the headmost thing that you had to consummate was to put your constitution into writing. That made it a rightful contract. The contract was between the people and the new government. It was how the people – “the governed” – gave their consent. It was like the people had said, “These are the things we say that the government may do. And these are the things that it may not do.” There’s that thought called “limited government.”
   
So, it was quite easy for the writers to list what the new state governments could NOT do. The British had kind of made that checklist for them. One’s home could not be searched without good reason. One could not be put in jail without good reason. One could not be kept in jail without a trial. One’s right to trial by jury could not be taken away. People had a right to assemble peaceably. Finally, the people’s right to ask, or even demand, that their government do something that they wished to be done could not be taken from them.
   
You’ve heard these, right? You should have by now. These are those “rights of Englishmen.” This is what the colonists would fight a war over at that time. The list of those rights was formed in England over lots of years. That started in 1215. That was with the “Magna Carta.” It put limits on what the king or queen could do.
   
Lots of these new constitutions put in still more rights. One was freedom of speech. That means that the folks in those states were free to speak their mind. They could excoriate the government. And they would have no fear of being arrested. This was unheard of at that time. There was no other place in the world at that time where the right of free speech was a law. Even now, some 250 years later, most of the world’s people still do not fully have that right.
   
It was a lot harder to say what powers the new state governments WOULD have than which ones they should not have. Americans had just expunged a too-powerful government. They did not want to build a new one that was just like that.
   
At the same time, though, Americans had sensibleness. They knew that it made no sense to give the government a job and then not give it the power to do it well. Let’s say that they wished to have schools or roads built. Then they had to give it the means to pay for those schools and roads. Thus, they had to give the government the right to collect taxes.

For guidance, they turned to their own colonial life. Each colony had its own law-making body. Each had a governor, too. The assemblies were elected by the colonists. But most governors were put in place by the king.
   
The governor was viewed as the king’s man. He would put people in office. But he chose men who the king wished for him to choose. What would he do when he had to decide whether to support an act of the assembly? He would check with the king’s advisers first. So, colonists looked to their elected assembly to look out for them. They did not look to the governor.
   
How did they act now that they were free of English rule? They would count on the assembly. They would not trust the governor. They gave their assemblies, now called “legislatures,” most of the power. This group made the laws. They created the courts. They put in place the judges. They put in place most of the administrators in each state. They put in place those who worked for the governor, too.
   
What power did the governor have? Not much. In most states, he could not even veto laws passed by the legislature. He was just a figurehead. That means that he had a title, but not much else.
   
At the same time, Americans wanted to be sure that the legislatures did not misuse their power. So, in most states, reps were voted on one year at a time. That way, voters could keep a close eye on their rep. If they were not pleased with him, they could replace him promptly. Most governors had just one-year terms, too.
   
None of these state constitutions used the word “democracy.” That’s because they did not build a “fully” democratic form of government. In a true democracy, the people govern directly. Each person can vote on each matter and each proposed law.
   
Now, you can get everyone in a village together in one place to discuss issues and vote. You may be able to get each person in a small town in one room. But you can see how it would not be doable for that to happen in a large region like a state.
   
Here is what you can do, though. You can have people elect reps to govern for them. Of course, that’s just what Americans had done for more than 100 years. And that’s while they were still colonists. What’s it called when people elect reps to govern them? It’s not a “direct democracy.” It’s called a “representative democracy.” That kind of government is called a “republic.” And that’s what each state constitution provided for. Each state had a republican form of government. (As you’ll see in a bit, that’s our nation’s form of government, too. So, when you say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, you say, “and to the republic for which it stands.”)

Freedom of Religion
   
Let’s head to one year after the Declaration of Independence. All but one state now had a brand-new written constitution. Each of these documents had provisions that were to protect each person’s freedoms. Further, lots of the state legislatures passed laws guaranteeing specific key freedoms. Nearly each state passed a law to protect religious freedom.
   
What was the most famous of these laws? It was Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom. Can you guess who wrote it? Thomas Jefferson! It said that the state could not be intruding in any way with the religious beliefs of its people. As Jefferson said, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg.”
   
Since it does no one harm, and, since the right to religious freedom was unalienable, the state should not concern itself with one’s religious beliefs. Now we call this the “separation of church and state.” It means that the government – the state – has no power to mandate an official state religion. An interrelated basic right is called “freedom of conscience.” This means that government can’t tell folks what church they should go to – or what they should believe. These are some of the key freedoms that we have.
   
Also, lots of Americans saw that slavery contradicted a key belief. This is that all humans were equal and had unalienable rights. As a result, five northern states passed laws to end slavery right then and there. Other states would free their slaves over time. No Southern state would do that, though. But some did make it easier for slave owners to free their enslaved workers, if they wished to. And some did.
   
So, in the end, state constitution-making was a huge success. As it turns out, it was much more successful than the first try at national constitution-making.

Chapter Three: The Articles of Confederation
   
The Big Question: There was no central governing body. Why did that prove to be a problem?
   
Let’s head to the 2nd Continental Congress. It was the meeting of delegates from all of the colonies. It took place in 1775. Those reps had been called to meet. They would decide what to do about the latest acts of the Brits against the colonists’ freedoms.
   
If someone had told them that they would still be meeting two years later, few of them would have believed it. But in 1777, there they were. And now, they would not just talk of protests against the Brits. They were in charge of a war for freedom. And they would keep at it for four more years. They had to, in order to still run that war.
   
The Congress would have to do something else, as well. It would try to agree on a government for the new United States. Most reps in the Congress knew that the new nation would need some kind of a central government. It would be for the whole nation. Each time that they would talk of a centralized government, though, they ran into a problem. And that was the fear of a government with too much power.
   
In 1777, the Congress ratified a plan for such a government. The plan was called the “Articles of Confederation.” It was sent to the states for their blessing. It was debated in each state. At last, it went into effect four years later, in 1781. Maryland was the last state to bless it.
   
The Articles were not like the state constitutions. The Articles DID form a law-making group. That was called Congress. That’s where the likenesses would desist. The people did not vote for the members of Congress like they did with their state bodies. Members of Congress were picked by the states.
   
In fact, the people of the U.S. had no direct tie with this new government at all. You see, the new government did not represent the people. It represented the states. And the states had established their own political independence. You’ll see the criticality of that contrast in a bit. 
   
There was one more key contrast between the Articles and the state constitutions. The states gave their legislatures power to do lots of things. The Articles, though, gave Congress power to do very few things. We’ll list some of the main powers.

First, Congress could declare war. And they could make peace. (You could not have one state make peace while the rest kept up a fight against the Brits!) Second, Congress could make treaties and alliances. This would be with other nations. Third, it could arbitrate quarrels between the states about their borders. That would be about where one state’s land ended and another’s began. Fourth, it could borrow cash. It could set up a postal service. It could create a currency, or money system. That was about it. And they wished to make sure that the Congress did not try to do more than it was supposed to. The Articles added this constraint. Unless the Articles clearly gave a power to the new Congress, Congress just did not have it.
   
   
Too Little Power
   
How did the Articles work out for them? To be frank, not well at all. There were lots of reasons why. For one thing, each state, large or small, had just one vote in Congress. Rhode Island had just 68,000 people. But they had the same vote as Virginia, which had more than ten times as many people. Some of the large states were irked. They felt that this voting set-up was not impartial.
   
Another kink was that Congress was always broke. In the war, the Continental Congress had borrowed a lot. They borrowed from other countries. They borrowed from individual Americans. All of this was to buy supplies and pay the army. Well, the war was over. Now it was time to start to pay the cash back.
   
So, why didn’t Congress just pass some laws to collect taxes? Well, the Articles did not let Congress tax people. Just the states could do that. Then how was Congress to get cash? All it could do was tell the states how much was needed. They would ask each state to give its fair share. If they did, fine. If they did not, then the central government had no power to make them ante up!
   
Not a surprise to you, perhaps, most did not. For each $100 that Congress asked for, the states gave just $5. You can’t pay off lots of liabilities that way. So, it was soon clear that the central government had to have at least some power to raise cash. But there was not much that could be done about it. That’s due to one more weak point in the Articles. To change things, all 13 states had to buy off on it. Twice, they tried to amend things to give Congress the right to tax. Each time, 12 states said yes. But one state said no. So, the endeavor miscarried.

Recall that the Articles gave Congress the right to declare war. But Congress had no power to raise an army. It could ask each state to give up its fair share of men. But once more, it was up to each state to say if it would do so. This was a big hindrance.
   
Here’s a case in point. Farmers revolted in Massachusetts in 1786. It was called Shays’s Rebellion. This was an armed insurgence. It was about what were thought to be unfair taxes and harsh economic conditions. The governor had to mobilize a military group to stop the insurgents.
   
There were other problems, too. The government of the U.S. had no one at its head. After their years with a king, Americans did not want to give power to any one person. Each year, Congress voted for one of its members to be president of the Congress. But that was not the same thing as being the head of the whole government. It was just a nice appellation with no real power.
   
Here’s what a weak central government wrought. States did just what they wished to do much of the time. And that’s even though they were not supposed to. Here’s a case in point. The Articles said that Congress had the right to raise a navy. But nine states went ahead and had navies of their own.
   
The central government seemed immaterial to lots of folks. State legislatures took their time voting for reps to Congress. The reps took even more time to get to its meetings. Some did not even bother.
   
Americans had been scared of building a central government with too much power. But they’d now had six impotent years under the Articles. Lots of folks now felt that they had built one with not enough power.

Chapter Four: The Plan for a New Constitution
   
The Big Question: You’ll meet James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Why did they think that a strong central government was needed?
   
Here’s the last thing that you’d think of. A weak Congress would pass one of the most crucial laws in all of U.S. history. But that’s just what it did in 1787.
   
This law is known as the Northwest Ordinance. At that time, the U. S. owned a huge triangle of land in the northwest. It had well-known borders. They were the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the Great Lakes. Right as the U.S. became free, folks poured into this enclave. In those days, here’s what the usual thing for a country to do was. It would turn such lands into colonies. That would be for its own benefit. That’s what England did. It’s what France and Spain did. It’s what other European countries did.
   
It’s not what the U.S. did, though. First, Congress gave a promise to each person who emigrated to these vast lands. They would have the same rights that those in the 13 states had. They would have trial by jury. They would have freedom of religion. Then, Congress split the region into smaller ones. When a certain number of folks had set up residency in a region, then it could become a state. Not a protectorate of a mother country, mind you. It would be a full-fledged state. It would be equal to all the other states. From that time on, this was the plan. It was used to build most of the other states in today’s U.S.
   
There was one more key part of the Northwest Ordinance. You’ve read that five Northern states had taken huge steps. They had put an end to slavery. Lots of folks in other states were watching this. They would come to think that slavery was wrong, too. They had been actuated by the words of the Declaration of Independence. You know these words! “All men are created equal.” Some of these folks were slaveholders themselves.
    
Congress could not do a thing about slavery in the states where it already was in place. But it did want to be unblurred about how it felt about slavery. Thus, the Northwest Ordinance would proscribe slavery anywhere in the Northwest Territory. That was a crucial thing to say at that time. It would be advocating for liberty and equality for all people. This would be even more crucial down the road.

A Need for Power
   
But just one law would not fix the issue. The fact still was that the Articles of Confederation did not work well. More folks began to feel that Congress would need more power and authority. Only that would make them effective. Many, though, wished to keep the Articles. They thought that a tweak here or there would be enough to do the trick.
   
Not James Madison. He was from a well-to-do Virginia family. He had spent most of his life in the study of government and politics. Folks said that he knew all that there was to know about governing. He had helped to write the new Virginia constitution. That’s when he was still in his twenties.
   
Now he was in his mid-thirties. He served as one of Virginia’s members of Congress. There, he saw firsthand the problems of the striving young nation. A few years had passed. He now thought that no amount of fixing could make the Articles work well. There was just one thing to do. Scrap the Articles and start over.
   
Alexander Hamilton came to the same thought. Hamilton’s childhood had been far different from Madison’s. He had grown up in the West Indies. His father was a British merchant. He had lived very prosperously. But he was complacent about the life of his own son. Hamilton’s mother died when he was only eleven.
   
A few years later, Alexander worked as a store clerk. At this time, a hurricane swept across his island. He wrote a letter. He chronicled the hurricane damage. It was printed in the local newspaper. A few rich island plantation titleholders were galvanized by his letter. They would now pay for Alexander to attend King’s College in New York.
   
Hamilton was a strong devotee of the Patriot cause. He joined Washington’s army. That was soon after the war started. In a short time, he was now one of Washington’s close aides. Now, he was one of New York’s members of Congress. He, too, saw how weak the new government was under the Articles.
   
Washington was like Madison and Hamilton. He felt that the central government had to have more power. In 1787, he wrote to a friend. He said,

“To be fearful of giving Congress enough power for national purposes appears to me to be madness. What then is to be done? Things can’t go on this way forever.” He feared that folks might become unslaked with the government. They might start to think that the country would be best off with a king!

In 1786, there was a call for a convention. It would be for all of the states. It would be in Philadelphia, in May 1787. Invites to it were sent out. This was at the same time as news was spread about Shays’s Rebellion. You’ll recall that this was in Massachusetts. That news helped to convince the states that the convention was a huge need. They planned to take part in it. And they chose sharp delegates to go to it.
   
Congress summarized the goal of this session. It said that it was to prescribe ways for revising the Articles. But for Hamilton and Madison, that was not the real goal. They did not want to “change” the Articles. They wished to supplant them with a new constitution built from scratch!
   
What should that look like? For more than a year, Madison had been excogitating that question. He pored over histories of ancient Greece and Rome. He looked at the thoughts of key thinkers on government and politics. He took notes. He thought. Then he read still more books. He took more notes. And he thought some more.
   
One thing was clear to him. A new central government must have more power than the old one had. Still, he was grappling with a big question. How do you create a government with enough power to act? But how can it have not so much power that it threatens the people’s liberties? His thoughts for a plan that would work soon took shape.
   
There is one thing that he had come to know. No central government could be a success if it was hinging onto the states for each thing that it had a need for. It had to raise its own cash. It had to enlist its own troops. It should not have to ask the states if they would “please pitch in.” That was the great enervation of the Articles.
   
At the same time, the date of the convention was drawing near. Newspapers all over the U.S. were filled with stories. They called the event the “Grand Convention of the States.” To us, it is known as the “Constitutional Convention.”
   
Readers of those newspapers were fathoming how crucial this was. What happened in Philadelphia – or did not happen if the delegates could not agree – would have a great effect on the future of their country.

And not just their own country. One newspaper said, “The Grand Convention of the States will show for all time the fate of republican government.” Here’s what that meant. European governments did not think that the U.S. would last as a nation. They thought that “average” people could not govern themselves. So, what if the convention failed to create a republican government that worked? Then the Europeans would say, “See, we told you so.” And it would be a long time before anyone else in the world would be trying a republican form of government again!

   
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

The United States Constitution

Lesson 26 – Part Two

    
NEW WORDS: Paterson, Philly’s, Randolph, Randolph’s, Sherman, Sherman’s, Virginian, advantaged, afflicting, amending, amendments, arousing, attendees, badgered, cobblestones, compromises, concessions, connoting, construed, contentiousness, convention’s, convocation, credo, critiquing, dealt, deliberations, determinedly, diminishing, disapprobation, disbursed, diversions, earsplitting, empowered, evenness, fifths, fixating, forestall, hunker, hurdles, impasse, ineffectual, infiltrated, inkwells, inmates, innumerous, jeopardizes, judiciary, justifiable, legislators, lending, lodgings, momentum, nicknaming, optimism, originator, ovation, override, proliferate, proposals, reconciliation, rep’s, revelation, riveting, secrecy, sedan, side’s, sousing, squeamish, strengthening, submitting, surmounted, sweltered, umpteen, usurp, wrangled
   
   

Chapter Five: Waiting in Philly
    
The Big Question: What is the originator of this passage connoting? He said, “They had to come here. They had to try to give that young nation a more secure future.”
    
The Convention was to start on May 14, 1787. Madison got to Philly on May 3. He thought that he was 11 days early. But that’s not as it turned out. He was 22 days early. That’s since things could not start till reps from at least 7 states were there.
    
It was Sunday morn, May 13. That’s the day before things were to start. Madison was still the only one from out-of-state to show up! No one was concerned though. In those days, meetings of this sort would rarely start on time. Delegates had to come from afar. They’d come on horseback. Or they might come by coach. In the best of weather, the roads were not good. And in the spring of 1787, it was not close to the best! Sousing rains had come. They had turned the roads to puddles and mud. That Sunday, May 13, though, it was dry. And later in the day, the sun came out.
    
Those in Philly were waiting to see the most famed American of all. That was George Washington, of course. Crowds lined the streets. They would give a huge ovation to their hero. There were lots of men who had served in the war. They came out in their old uniforms to greet their leader. Washington’s presence alone was riveting. It was enough to proliferate feelings of hope and optimism about the Convention.
    
In the next few days, more reps showed up. Madison used the time well. His fellow reps from Virginia were now there. So, he met with them. They came up with a plan of government. They would be submitting it to all of the attendees. At the same time, all the reps got to know each other. They talked of the crucial work that lay in front of them. In the evenings, Philly’s well-known families treated the guests to entertaining diversions.
    
It was clear that the states had taken the call for this session determinedly. Their reps were some of the ablest men in the country. The best-known of them, next to Washington, was also the oldest. That was Ben Franklin. He was the man who had flown a kite and a key. He showed the world that lightning was electricity. He was Philly’s leading citizen. He improved life in the city in innumerous ways. He had founded the first lending library. He helped to start a university. He had also invented umpteen things that made life better for Americans.

If one could be described as practical, it was Ben Franklin. All of the reps had come to count on his good sense. They knew that he would help the session to succeed. But he was now in his 80s. He was not in good health. He could not even walk the 200 yards from his house to the convention’s meeting place. But Ben had thought things through. He had brought back a sedan chair from France. This chair sat on two long poles. It had a cover on top. This would protect the rider from rain or sun. Four men would stand, two at each pole. They would carry the chair and its rider. They would take him from place to place. The locals were quite used to seeing this sight. Four men would carry their world-famous citizen through town in this manner. In fact, they were four inmates from the local jail. Ben had hired them himself.
    
A few famed Americans were not at the convocation. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have loved to have been there. But they were serving the U.S. in Europe. Jefferson was our ambassador to France. Adams was in the same role in England.
    
Also not there was Patrick Henry of Virginia. And Sam Adams and John Hancock of Massachusetts could not make it. Folks recalled Patrick Henry for his arousing speeches. He had been in great support of the Patriot cause. One of his most famous speeches was made before the war. It was the one in which he had said this. “I am a Virginian no more, but an American.”

Well, that was then. By the 1780s, though, he thought that he was mainly a Virginian, after all. That is, his love for his home state was at least as great as his love for the U.S. He did not wish to be strengthening the central government. And he had guessed that that’s what the leaders were up to. Virginia chose him to be a rep at the meeting. But he would not go. Later, he said, “I smelt a rat.”

The Work Starts
    
Now enough reps had come for the session to start. On Monday, May 25, delegates walked from their lodgings. They came to the handsome Pennsylvania State House. The city was up and moving. One could hear the clatter of horses’ hooves. And there was a rattle of the iron wagon wheels. As they coursed over the cobblestone streets, the noise was earsplitting. (The city government later did a favor for the reps. They spread gravel over the cobblestones so that it would be diminishing the noise.)
   
The men entered the State House. They met in the east chamber. It was a large room about 40 feet by 40 feet. There were high windows on two sides. In recent years, the room had been called the “Independence Room.” It was here that the Declaration of Independence had been signed. That was 11 years prior.
   
A few of these same reps had signed that document. They looked at the room now. They saw familiar sights. The tables were each covered with a green cloth. The inkwells and quill pens were set on each, ready for use. In this room, they had helped give birth to a new nation. Now they had come here once more. This time they would try to give that young nation a more secure future. At 11:00 A.M., the guard closed the doors. The reps took their seats. It was time for them to hunker down and get to work.

Chapter Six: Some Major Calls Had To Be Made
   
The Big Question: What was the Virginia Plan? And why might some reps not have liked it?
   
Right at the start, the reps took two key steps. The first was to choose a chairman for the event. And it’s just who you’d think it would be. George Washington was each rep’s first choice. So, he took the “job.” The 2nd was to keep all of their deliberations secret. That way, each rep could share his own thoughts freely. He could even change his mind. This would not be an issue that could face public disapprobation. The reps would not have to fret about newspapers or citizens. No one would look over their shoulders. No one would be critiquing this or that motion. Things would work like this. The body would give its final plan to the people. They’d say, “this is the result of our best efforts. Now it is for you, the people, to say yes or no.”
   
Such secrecy did not mean just closed doors. It meant closed windows, too. And that summer of 1787 was Philly’s hottest in some 40 years! There was not a breath of fresh air coming into the hot and sticky room. The poor reps sweltered in the afflicting heat. Mosquitoes bit right through their clothing. And big bluebottle flies danced around their heads. It was a wonder that the delegates could be fixating on their work.
   
So, how do we know what was said there? It was secret! We owe that to a few reps who took notes. Madison took the most. He chose a seat right at the front. There, he could hear each person. “I was not absent a single day,” he wrote. “Nor more than a fraction of an hour in any day.” He used his own made-up abbreviations and symbols. He wrote down in a private journal each thing that went on in the meetings.
   
We know a lot from his notes. Here’s one big thing. He addressed the room no fewer than 161 times! For sure, the soft-spoken Madison had a lot to say. But then, no one had thought more about how to make a constitution than he had. Now let’s learn more about what went on.

The Virginia Plan
   
Edmund Randolph of Virginia asked to speak first. He was the governor of the state. It was his job to present the thoughts that Madison and the others had worked on. These came to be called the “Virginia Plan.” Randolph told the body that they would give some proposals soon. But first, he said, it might be good to talk at a high level.
   
So, first, he talked about the things that a central government should be empowered to do. First, such a body should provide for the common defense. That means that it should protect Americans from foreign enemies. The reps listened thoughtfully. No debates there.
   
Second, it should protect the liberties of the American people. No argument there, either.
  
Third, it should be able to make laws about trade between the states. That’s so that the states would not tax each other’s citizens. More agreement from the body.
   
Fourth, it should provide for the general welfare of the people. That meant that it would do things for the good of ALL the people. The people of one state or another would not be advantaged. Once again, no disputes here.
   
Randolph continued. He brought up the Articles of Confederation. Recall the way that they had been written. The central government could not do the above things. It would need the power to raise an army. It should not have to beg the states for soldiers. It would need the power to collect its own taxes. It should not have to beg the states for cash. And it would need more powers besides. Randolph then construed what the new government might look like. You’ll read about that in just a bit.
   
It was near the end of that day. A few reps were a tad squeamish about some of these thoughts. Yes, yes, they said. The Virginians just might be right. But where was Randolph’s discourse to lead them? Well, he did not let them guess for long. The next day he spoke again. He talked about what his Virginia comrades believed. He said that the central government must be able to deal directly with the people. It could not just depend on the kindness of the state governments. In some ways, it must have powers higher than those of the states. In those ways, the central government must have supreme powers.

A Strong Central Government?
   
But wait! What was the key credo of the Articles? It was that the STATES would have supreme power. Now, here was Randolph trying to change the rules of the game. He said that we’d need a national government that would be supreme OVER the states in some ways. That last statement of Randolph’s hung heavy over the body. It was met by a long silence. You know that Congress had called this session to REVISE the Articles. It was not meant to throw them out. But here it was, just the first week of the session. And the Virginians were asking them to do just that.
   
Now there were debates. They were long and sometimes heated. At one point, they had put aside this issue. They would come back to it. They focused on other parts of the Virginia Plan for now. But the issue had been raised. And it had infiltrated the minds of all.
   
On June 15, we turn to William Paterson. He was from New Jersey. He brought up a new choice vs. the Virginia Plan. This would be known as the “New Jersey Plan.” Some were nicknaming it the “small state plan.” It would not replace the Articles. It would add amendments to them. The next day, though, Randolph stood firm. He said that amending the Articles would not fix its problems. The body did not meet the next day, Sunday.
   
On Monday, they met again. Hamilton gave a long speech. He went the other way! He called for a more powerful central government than the Virginia Plan did!
   
On June 19, Madison gave a long speech. The convention made a big decision. They would, indeed, write a new constitution. It would build a new, stronger central government for the U.S. They would not try to amend the Articles.

Chapter Seven: Checks, Balances, and Compromises
   
The Big Question: They would now write a new constitution. What were the main hurdles that had to be surmounted to do that?
   
No one wished for the central government to have all the power. They did not wish to usurp all power from the states. What would be crafted was something in between. Powers were split between the central government and the states.
   
This is called a “federal system” The aim here is to give each level of government the jobs that each can do best. The central level does some jobs. The state level does other jobs. Sound easy? It’s not! How do you get the right balance between the two? That’s quite hard to do. Just think about the way that things worked under the Articles. They let the states keep too much power. They gave too little power to the central level. The result was ineffectual. The central government did not work well at all.
   
So, to find the right evenness of power would be hard to do. Madison had been grappling with this for more than a year. Do you recall this? You have to build a central government with enough power to act. But it can’t have so much power that it jeopardizes the people’s freedoms. That question badgered the reps all through the session. Lots of them were scared that they’d create a too-strong central government. They feared that it would abuse its power. You can see what deep scars their time with the king and Parliament had left on Americans!

Separation of Powers
   
The Virginia Plan had an answer to that problem. It would divide the new national government into three equal branches. These were the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Each branch would have its own duties and powers. This is known as the “separation of powers.” And this is part of our Constitution today. Here is how power is disbursed among these three branches.
   
The legislative branch is Congress. Congress is a legislature. That’s a group of people who make the laws for the country. Its members are called “legislators.”
   
The executive branch is headed by the President of the United States. The president sees that the laws are carried out. He or she runs the government. The president also deals with other countries. And he or she serves as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
   
The judicial branch can be termed the “judiciary.” This name comes from the same word as “judge.” It is made up of the Supreme Court and other federal, or national, courts. These courts take cases that involve the Constitution and the laws that Congress passes.
   
   
Checks and Balances

Now, each of these branches has a lot of power. But none is free to do just what it wants to. That’s because each branch can check, which means stop, the others. Each branch “checks and balances” the other two.
   
For instance, Congress can pass any law that it wants to. But the president has the right to veto, or disapprove it. Congress can then override, or reject, a presidential veto. The president can make a treaty with another country. But the treaty only goes into effect if the Senate buys off on it. The president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. But only Congress can declare war.
   
Do you see why this is called a system of checks and balances? Power is spread out. It is balanced among the three branches. Each branch can check, or stop, the other two.

Compromises
   
For the first month, the Convention had strong momentum. But each rep knew that there would be issues that could cause trouble. If those could not be solved, the whole session would end in failure.
   
The first of these was the issue of representation in Congress. Before that could be resolved, they had to agree on whether there would be one house of Congress or two. The Virginia Plan called for two houses. The New Jersey Plan, one. They agreed on two. Then they wrangled about how many representatives – that is, how many votes – each state would have in both houses.
   
Do you recall how the Articles dealt with that question? The Articles said, “one state, one vote.” Each state had one vote. And that was no matter how big the state or how many people lived in it. Of course, the big states did not like that. So now the Virginia Plan proposed that representation be based on population. In other words, the more people a state had, the more votes it would have. The New Jersey Plan wanted to retain the Articles’ one vote per state.
   
It was not a huge revelation that Virginia wished to have representation based on population. Virginia, after all, was the largest state. And it was not a surprise that small states like Delaware and New Jersey wished to keep the “one state, one vote rule.” They said that the Virginia Plan would give the large states too many votes in Congress.
   
The contentiousness between big states and small states grew more and more heated. Each side said that its own proposal was the only fair one. Each side said that it would not agree to the other side’s proposal. For a time, it looked like this would be the rock on which the Convention would crash.
   
Then Roger Sherman, a rep from Connecticut, came forward. Why not base the members of one house of Congress on population? That one would be called the House of Representatives. In the other house, each state, whether big or small, would have an equal vote. That house would be called the Senate. That way, both the large states and the small ones would each get something.

Sherman had proposed a compromise. In such a case, each side gives up something it wants in order to reach a reconciliation. Reps on both sides knew that they would need to make some concessions to break the impasse. Sherman’s plan seemed like a justifiable one. Angry words flew back and forth for a few more weeks. But Sherman’s plan was bought off on in the end. This came to be called the Great Compromise.
   
The reps had solved one tough issue. Now they faced another. This might have even been a tougher one. It was the issue of slavery. It was not a question of getting rid of slavery. Northern states DID want to get rid of it. But they knew that some Southern states would just walk out if they tried. So, they did not try.
   
They tried to deal with this in a different way. Should states be allowed to count enslaved workers as a part of their population? What if slaves were part of a state’s population? Then that state would have more votes in Congress. The design was that the larger a state’s population, the more reps it could send to the House. The Northern states said that slaves could not count as people. After all, said these states, “you Southerners claim that slaves are just your property. How can you count property as part of your population?” But Southern states said that slaves SHOULD be counted as people.
   
Once again, an accord saved the day. To count the number of reps that each state would have in the House, five slaves would count as three persons. This became known as the “Three-Fifths Compromise.”
   
There was one more compromise between the North and South about slavery. Northern states wished to end the slave trade. They wished to stop more slaves from being brought into the country. But Georgia and South Carolina threatened to walk out over this issue. In the end, the two sides struck a deal. Slaves could be imported for another 20 years. But after that, Congress could forestall bringing in any more. (Twenty years later, Congress did just that.)
   
Making these compromises on slavery was not a proud moment for the Convention. Yet all of the reps knew that without them, there would be no new constitution. And there would be no new, stronger central government. Slavery would have to continue on in the new nation. And that was even though lots of folks were against it.

    
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
   

The United States Constitution

Lesson 27 – Part Three

    
NEW WORDS: Clair, Philadelphians, TVs, advocates, affirmative, agreements, assailing, audiences, authoritatively, board’s, bonfires, broadcasted, cagey, censored, chairman’s, citizenry’s, citizenship, clauses, commentaries, conciliate, conventions, conviviality, crowning, declamations, defenders, diametrically, discommode, disputants, divvying, dominance, endorsed, evading, federalism, federalist, federalists, fourths, framers, frameworks, genesis, glitches, groundbreaking, handcuffing, holdouts, impassioned, impeach, impede, implicated, insurmountable, interferes, jettisoning, jollities, misdoubt, misstep, nominated, ordain, outlawing, outlines, overlapping, parroted, percentages, perfection, perpetuate, picnicking, pledging, posterity, press’s, proportionally, publishing, qualifications, ratification, ratify, ratifying, reelect, republics, retort, revelries, signify, specificity, stances, sunbeams, tacking, tactical, tranquility, vehemently, violating
   
   

Chapter Eight: The Convention Completes Its Work
   
The Big Question: What steps were put in place to ratify the Constitution?
   
The compromises kept the convention alive. They then moved steadily on to complete their work. A few key questions were still in front of them. Here are some of them. And you’ll see how they were resolved.
   
What should the term of office be for a member of the House of Representatives? Two years.
   
What should the term of office be for a member of the Senate? Six years.
   
How many senators should each state have? Two.
   
How many presidents should there be? Yes, that’s right! How many presidents at one time? For a while, the reps thought of splitting the powers of the president among three people. They feared giving all of that power (again!) to just one person. In the end, they went with just one president. And he or she would have a term of four years.
   
So, the final questions had been answered. Now they had to decide on a way for the new Constitution to be amended. You’ll recall that to amend a constitution should be harder than passing a normal law. At the same time, it should not be insurmountable. That was one of the problems of the Articles. They needed all 13 states to agree on an amendment. The Convention’s answer was to have minimal vote percentages to approve an amendment. That would be before it could become a part of the Constitution. In each house of Congress, they must have two-thirds of the reps vote “yes.” Among the states, they must have three-fourths of all the states vote “yes.”
   
Two more questions had to do with ratifying the Constitution. To ratify means to approve or accept. They all agreed that before the new Constitution could go into effect, it had to be ratified by the states. But by how many states? And who would speak for each state? The Articles again showed them what NOT to do. The Articles had let the state legislatures decide for each state. And they had required all 13 of them to give their buy-in. It had taken four years to get all 13 states to ratify!

So, the reps at the Convention said this. “We can’t let that happen again. This is also too crucial to let the state legislatures decide. It’s not as though the Constitution were just another “normal” law. Plus, the reps were concerned that the state legislatures might fight ratification. They might fear that the new government would take power from them. So, this is what the reps did. Each state would call a special ratifying convention. That way the people would have a direct say in a vote on the new Constitution. This was “social contract theory” in action. The people would choose the members of these conventions. They would be representatives of the people. The ratifying conventions would have just one job. That would be to decide whether to approve the new Constitution. When nine of them approved, the new Constitution would go into effect.

    
Supreme Law of the Land
   
Here was another key question for the reps. What if part of a state’s constitution conflicts with the Constitution that the convention created? Or what if a state passes a law that conflicts with it? Is that OK? The reps saw that this would NOT be OK. What if that were to be allowed? Then each state could go its own way. It could be evading the new Constitution altogether. Then you would not have a real nation at all.
   
The convention took care of that problem. They penned these words in the Constitution. “This Constitution – and the laws of the United States – shall be the supreme law of the land. Anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
   
So, what happens when a state law or a state constitution says one thing, and the U.S. Constitution or Congress says another? Then what the U.S. Constitution or Congress says goes.

Should There Be a Bill of Rights?
   
One more key question was in front of them. Should the new Constitution include a bill of rights? A bill of rights would list the rights of citizens. It would make it clear that the new national government could not discommode them. This list would include a number of rights. Freedom of speech. Freedom of the press, including that no information written in the press could be censored by the government! Freedom of religion. The right to trial by jury.
   
Some reps thought that the new Constitution should list these rights. Most, though, felt that the state constitutions already guaranteed them. Thus, there was no need to repeat them. They also thought that the limits placed on the new government were strong. They would impede it from violating individual rights. There was another potential problem. If they wrote the rights down, some might be left out and not protected. In the end, the reps decided not to write a bill of rights. As you’ll soon see, that was a misstep.
    
    
How Many Presidents?
   
One reason that the reps landed on having a single president was simple. They all knew who the first one would be! It was a person who they knew they could trust. It was a person who they knew would not abuse his power. They had trusted him to lead their armies in war. They had chosen him as chairman of this convention. You know who he was. Yes, they all agreed that George Washington would become the nation’s first president.
    
    
Success at Last!
   
The Constitutional Convention neared the end of its work. A committee was nominated. They would put all of the convention’s agreements into language that would be right for a constitution. On September 12, the reps gathered to hear the draft Constitution read aloud. “We, the People of the United States,” a committee member began. What words those were! Not, “We the States.” Not, “We the People of the states of New York and Pennsylvania and Georgia.” No. “We, the People of the United States.”

Then, the reps heard the purposes and principles of the new national government. “We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union (to have a better government than we had under the Articles of Confederation), establish justice, insure domestic tranquility (to keep peace within the country), provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
   
As they heard these words, the reps marveled at what they had achieved in those four months in Philadelphia. It was, George Washington later said, “little short of a miracle.”
   
There were a few more days of talks. Some small tweaks were made. Then on September 17, the final document was ready to be signed. The time for secrecy was over. Windows were opened once more. A cool breeze flowed through the room.
   
Forty-two delegates gathered in the Independence Room. Three of them would not support the new Constitution. One of them was Edmund Randolph. You’ll recall that he had shown the Virginia Plan to the convention. The other 39, one by one, stepped to the front of the room. That’s where the document was ready to be signed. Alexander Hamilton, who had been away from the convention, came back to sign for New York.
   
None of the 39 agreed with every single thing in the document. But they did agree that the debates had been conducted fairly. None of them thought that it was perfect. But lots of them shared Franklin’s belief. Ben said that he was surprised that the system they had created came as close to perfection as it did. They all thought that the Constitution was a great improvement over the Articles of Confederation.

As they signed the document, Franklin spoke to the room one last time. He was unable to rise from his chair. He recalled the start of the convention. He said that he had looked at a carving of a sun with sunbeams on the back of the chairman’s chair. “I have often looked at that without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”
   
What ended up happening at this Constitutional Convention was a groundbreaking moment in world history. The men who were there created a plan for an innovative new system of government – a type of republic. Republics had been around for a long time. We can go as far back as the days of ancient Greece to find them. But this republic would be different than those that came before it.
   
The U.S. Constitution is thought to be one of the most important documents ever written in human history. Many countries that wrote constitutions after the American one looked to it for inspiration.
   
History has also shown great respect for the men who contributed to authoring the Constitution. You may hear them called “the framers” of the Constitution. There were 55 delegates who attended. (They ranged in age from 26 to 81.) Yet only 39 delegates actually signed the document. Rhode Island was the only state that sent no one to attend.
   
James Madison is known as the “Father of the Constitution.” This is a title that he earned for working hard to make sure that the Constitutional Convention happened. And the leaders at the Constitutional Convention are commonly called today “the Founding Fathers.”

Chapter Nine: The States Ratify
   
The Big Question: Why was it thought to be crucial to have a Bill of Rights as part of the U.S. Constitution?
   
Now came the crowning test. Would the people vote for what the Convention had come up with? It was time to find out. It took just a few days after the convention ended. Newspapers through the whole country were publishing the entire Constitution. All citizens could now read each line of the document. They would discuss it. They would analyze it. They would argue about it.
   
It had been awesome enough to have reps come together to write a new Constitution. It was even more amazing to see the citizens get involved. “We the People” would now have a say about their own futures – and the future of their country.
   
It was soon clear that there were two sides to the citizenry’s reactions. Some Americans wished to have the Constitution very much. But others did not want it at all. Those who endorsed it came to be called “Federalists.” Those who were assailing it were known as “Anti-Federalists.” Their positions were about as diametrically opposed as could be possible!
   
Both sides used the newspapers. They would each present their stances to the public. Anti-Federalists had three main points. First, they said that the Convention should have only offered tweaks to the Articles. What business did the reps have jettisoning the Articles? They had gone way past what they should have done.
   
Second, Anti-Federalists felt that the plan had built a much too powerful central government. Had they learned nothing from all those years of being under England’s handcuffing rule?
   
And third, they said that the plan had failed to put a crucial item in the Constitution. There was no bill of rights! They warned that the central government was a threat. It could take away the freedoms of the people. State constitutions had clauses that would protect people’s rights from the state governments. The national Constitution needed like provisions. They were needed to protect people’s rights from the new central government.
   
The plan of the Anti-Federalists was to delay things. They tried to get the states to put off their ratifying conventions. They tried, too, to get the states and the Congress to call for another national convention. They would need to fix the glitches in this draft Constitution first. There would be plenty of time, they said, to have the states’ voting after that.

The Federalists took a different tack. They wished to get the Constitution ratified fast. They would focus on states where there was strong buy-in. They would put off votes in states where there was strong opposition. They hoped that support for the Constitution would grow as the first states would vote for it.
   
You can guess who the lead defenders on the Federalist side were. Right! They were Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Those two, plus John Jay from New York, wrote 85 newspaper articles! They discussed each part of the document. They went over almost every sentence of the new Constitution. They explained to the American people why each part was crucial. They showed how the new government would work. They gave specificity for why the Articles needed to be replaced. The essays became known as the “Federalist Papers.”
   
   
The Struggle for Ratification
   
You’ll recall that each state was to hold a one-time ratifying convention. What would put the new Constitution into effect? It would take a yes vote in nine states.
   
Delaware held the first convention. They voted yes. Pennsylvania and New Jersey soon had their votes. That made the score three for yes, zero for no. Yes votes in Georgia and Connecticut in January 1788 made it five.
   
Federalists were pleased by this good start. But they knew that tough fights lay ahead. One of those was sure to take place in Massachusetts. The Anti-Federalists were strong there.
   
They were holding their ratifying convention. Anti-Federalists vehemently attacked the new Constitution. Here’s how one rep talked of his fear and misdoubt about it.
   
“We fought against England. Some said that it was for a three-penny tax on tea. But it was not that. It was that they claimed a right to tax us. They claimed a right to bind us in all cases whatever. And does not this Constitution do the same? Does it not take away all that we have? Does it not take all of our property? Does it not impose all taxes?”
   
Other disputants jumped on the lack of a bill of rights. With no bill of rights, they said, the freedoms of the people would not be safe.

For a time, the Anti-Federalist plan seemed to work. Then the Federalists hit on a cagey plan of their own. They did not explain why no bill of rights was needed. They now wished to conciliate with the Anti-Federalists. “Here’s what we’ll do if you join us in ratifying the Constitution,” they said. “We then promise to support a bill of rights.” This offer won over enough Anti-Federalists! That swung the Massachusetts convention. They voted in favor of the Constitution.
   
“Six down, three to go,” said the Federalists. Then Maryland voted in the affirmative in April. And South Carolina voted yes in May. That put eight states in favor of the new Constitution. There were eight down, with just one more to go. New Hampshire was the next state to have a ratifying convention. If they said yes, the Constitution would go into effect.
   
The sole problem was that two of the biggest and most crucial states were not among the nine. Those were Virginia and New York. They would need at least one of those two states. The new nation would be very shaky without one of them.
   
Well, New Hampshire did vote yes in June. But advocates for the Constitution could not breathe with ease yet. Their eyes turned to Virginia. There, the battle between Federalists and Anti-Federalists raged for nearly a month. Patrick Henry was among the leading Anti-Federalists. He could still win over listeners with his impassioned declamations. James Madison was among the leading Federalists. He could win over audiences with his calm and brilliant commentaries about the Constitution.
   
And there was Governor Edmund Randolph. He had proposed the Virginia Plan. But he then refused to sign the Constitution. But there was good news about him. He had changed his mind once again. He was now in favor of the Constitution.
   
Anti-Federalists in Virginia parroted what their colleagues in Massachusetts and elsewhere had done. They pointed to the lack of a bill of rights. Patrick Henry led the charge. Without a bill of rights, roared Henry, our liberty, the “greatest of all earthly blessings,” is in danger.

The Federalists, though, had a tactical retort. That’s just as they had done in Massachusetts. “Vote for the Constitution now,” they told the Anti-Federalists. Then we will work with you to add a bill of rights to the Constitution.
   
“No,” said the Anti-Federalists. First, call a new constitutional convention. Add a bill of rights. Then we’ll vote. Amend first, said the Anti-Federalists. Amend later, said the Federalists.
   
On the day of the vote, Madison made a big promise. He said that once the Constitution took effect, he personally would lead the fight to amend it with a bill of rights. That seemed to do the trick. By a narrow margin, Virginia voted yes.
   
   
The Bill of Rights
   
Madison was true to his word. He was elected to the House of Representatives in the new government. And he set to work putting together a bill of rights. He produced his draft amendments in June 1789. There was some debate in the House and the Senate. Most of his points were adopted. They were then sent to the states for their votes. (Remember, amending the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in each house of Congress. Then there must be approval by three-fourths of the states.) In 1791, ten of these amendments were ratified by the states. Thus, they were added to the Constitution. These first ten amendments are known as the Bill of Rights.
   
Here’s what the Bill of Rights says to the national government. “These are the basic rights of the people. You can’t take them from them. For instance, you can’t make any law that interferes with freedom of speech. You can’t take away freedom of religion. You can’t take away the press’s freedom to print what it wishes. You can’t stop people from assembling peaceably. You can’t stop people from asking the government to do something about their complaints.”
   
Here’s another of those first ten amendments. It protects one against the government illegally entering and searching one’s house. (Sound familiar? It should. Lots of these are the same “rights of Englishmen” over which the Revolutionary War was fought.) Four other amendments make sure that people who are implicated in a crime get a fair trial.
   
Taken together, what do those first ten amendments to the Constitution signify to us? They are the most important protector of our liberties that we have! They support the principle of limited government.

But we have gotten ahead of our tale. So, Virginia approved the Constitution. It was now clear that the struggle for ratification had been won. Meanwhile, let’s head to New York. That state’s ratifying convention was meeting. At the start, the Anti-Federalists had three-to-one dominance over the Federalists. Alexander Hamilton, who had represented New York at the Constitutional Convention, was very worried.
   
But as soon as Virginia’s convention voted yes, a messenger raced to New York with the news. He got there in early July. The news he brought had an almost instant effect. With Virginia voting yes, New York knew that the new Constitution would go into effect. They thought that it would not be wise to be left out of the new nation. By the end of July, New York would vote yes. But it was just by three votes.
   
Two states were still holdouts. They were North Carolina and Rhode Island. But they could wait. There was now, authoritatively, a Constitution of the United States!
   
It was time for the U.S. to celebrate. And did it ever! There were bonfires. There were ringing church bells. There were parades in cities and towns throughout the land.
   
No conviviality was grander than the one in the nation’s largest city, Philadelphia. There, the citizens chose to celebrate their nation’s new start on Independence Day. That, of course, was the 4th of July. At dawn, church bells rang. And booming cannons were heard. They were from the ship Rising Sun in the harbor. All of this broadcasted the start of the jollities. Later that morning, a mile-and-a-half-long parade set off through the city. Floats, marching bands, and ordinary citizens offered their welcome to their new nation’s genesis. After that, there came an afternoon of speeches and picnicking. Nearly half of the entire population of Philly turned out for these huge revelries. At the end of the day, one leading citizen said, “Now it is done. Now we are a nation.”
   
Indeed, we were.

Chapter Ten: Our Constitution Today
   
The Big Question: The U.S. Constitution has been with us for more than 200 years. What are some of the reasons for this success?
   
What would it be like if those who wrote the Constitution came back today? Would they recognize the country that they helped to create? I bet that you can list 100 things that would be quite strange to them. What if that’s all that they saw. Well then, they would not recognize the U.S. at all.
   
What would they say about planes? About cars and trucks whizzing along our roads? About tall office buildings in crowded cities? About cell phones, telephones, TVs, computers?
   
But what if those same writers saw these next things? They’d hear today’s citizens talk about who to vote for. They might hear folks argue against the school board’s new plan in a public meeting. They’d hear folks discuss the news that they’d just heard. Lots of these types of things they would find familiar. After all, we still choose our own representatives. We still meet in public to have a say about laws that we will live by. We still have our rights to free speech and free press. With these things, chances are that they would smile. They would congratulate each other. They would say, “Do you recall the Constitution that we wrote more than 200 years ago? Well, it is alive and well in the 21st century U.S.” Why has this Constitution lasted so long? The short answer is this. For 200-plus years, it has served the American people well. How has it done this?

Not Too Much, Not Too Little
   
Here’s one of the great features of the U.S. Constitution. It does not try to say or do too much. Do you recall how a well-made constitution is like frameworks of houses? And how laws are like the furniture that fits inside? The people who wrote our Constitution, though, did not confuse the house with the furniture. They did not try to write rules for each small detail of government. They set down the main framework. And that’s all.
   
Why is that crucial? What’s wrong with a constitution that spells out small details? Well, no one, no matter how wise, can guess what life will be like many years in the future. Recall that a good written constitution should not be too easy to change. What if you load up your constitution today with a lot of rules that may make no sense later? Then your constitution will not work well for long.
   
Here’s a good case in point. How many people should each member of the House of Representatives represent? The Constitution says that each member has to represent at least 30,000 people. It could be more, though. How many more? It does not say. It lets each future generation decide for itself. That’s a good thing, too. What if the Constitution had said this? “Each member of the House shall represent exactly thirty-thousand people.” If that were written down, it would mean “for all time.” Well, look at our population today. In that case, there would be more than 9,000 members who would now sit in the House! That is, if they could find seats! So, we’ve got the framework. But there is still flexibility. Today, the number of voting representatives in the House is fixed by law at no more than 435. But we still must proportionally represent the population of the 50 states.
   
So, that’s one good reason that the Constitution could last all of this time. It does not try to do more than it should. In fact, after tacking on the Bill of Rights – ten amendments – in 1791, there’s been little other change. We’ve amended our Constitution just 17 more times in over 200 years! The latest amendment was ratified in 1992. Other key amendments include these. First is the outlawing of slavery (the 13th). Then the rights of blacks and women to vote were gained (the 15th and 19th). Another is the restriction of presidential terms to two per president (the 22nd). And we had the voting age being set to 18 (the 26th).
   
The U.S. Constitution is far better now than it was when it was first written. And if it will be improved in the future, it will be we the people who will do so.

Four Guiding Principles
   
Here’s one more way that the Constitution has stood the test of time. It is built on four strong guiding principles. The first of these is the one that Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence. Governments get “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Do you recall what that means? It means that “we the people” rule. We rule by choosing the people who represent us. We do this on the national level. We do it on the state level. We do it in the towns and cities in which we live. What if we like the job our reps have done? Well, we can reelect them. What if we don’t like their work? Then we can choose others to represent us.
   
The second principle is limited government. The Constitution lists lots of things that the national government may do. It can collect taxes. It can borrow cash. It can control trade between the U.S. and other countries. It can make laws about immigration and citizenship. It can coin and print money. It can run a postal service. It can create new courts. It can create an army and a navy. It can declare war and make peace. Those are a lot of powers, to be sure.
   
But there are lots of things that the national government may not do. The Constitution prevents the government from interfering with the freedoms and liberties of the people. The Bill of Rights spells out still other limits. You’ll recall the principle of limited government. This is what safeguards our freedoms. It guards against the government becoming too strong.
   
The third principle is the separation of powers. The ownership for government in the U.S. is split among three branches of government. Here they are. The legislative branch. The executive branch. The judicial branch.

The legislative branch, or Congress, makes the laws. The executive branch, led by the president, carries out the laws. The judicial branch handles challenges to those laws. And it can decide whether they are permitted by the Constitution. If not, the law is “unconstitutional.”
   
The Supreme Court can also find actions by the president to be unconstitutional. Congress can impeach and remove the president. They can do the same with individual judges. It’s good that the powers of government are split in this way. Thus, no one branch of government can do whatever it wants. No one branch can ride roughshod over the other two. Each branch is checked and balanced by the other two.

The fourth principle is federalism. As you’ve learned, this is the system of splitting the powers of government between the national and the state governments. But there’s a trick to making a federal system work. We have to give each level of government the jobs that it does best. The writers of our Constitution did a brilliant job of divvying up powers the right way. Below lists some of the powers that are granted to both the national and state government levels. There, you’ll also see a place where the powers are overlapping. This means that both the national government and the states have these powers. There’s the power to tax, for instance. The national government needs this power to pay for our armed forces and lots of other things. But the state governments also need this power. They have to pay for building roads and running schools.
   
So, now you know lots of the reasons why our Constitution has lasted more than 200 years. There is, though, one other reason for the success of the U.S. Constitution. It is the American people. We have shown respect for the Constitution. And we have taken care to perpetuate it. And in return, the Constitution has taken care of us.
   
    
Here is a summary of “Federalism.”

National Government Powers.
   
Admit new states.

Declare war and make peace.

Create a military.

Control trade between states and with other countries.

Print and coin money.

Make laws for citizenship.

   
Some Powers of State Governments.
   
Conduct elections.

Set qualifications for voting.

Control trade within the state.

Set up local governments.

Make laws for marriage and divorce.

Set up public schools.

   
Some Shared Powers.
   
Collect taxes.

Borrow money.

Set up court systems.

Make laws to provide for public health, safety, and welfare.

   
    
+++++
    
    
Glossary
     
alliance, a partnership of different countries, organizations, or people who agree to work together

ambassador, a person who is an official representative of his or her government in another country

assemble, to gather together

   
compromise, when each side in a disagreement gives up some of what they want to reach an agreement

confederation, a group of states joined together by a formal agreement

conscience, a sense or belief a person has that a certain action is right or wrong

consent, approval or agreement

 
delegate, representative

deliberate, to think about and discuss issues before reaching a decision

 
executive, having the power to carry out and enforce laws

 
federal, relating to a system of government in which the national government shares power with other levels of government, such as states; it can also refer to national government

 
immigration, the act of moving from one country to another country to live

impeach, to bring formal charges against a government official

 
judicial, having the power to decide questions of law

 
legislative, having the power to make laws

liberty, freedom

 
ordinance, a law or government rule

 
politics, the activities of leaders running a government

posterity, descendants, or future generations

provision, a condition that is included in an agreement or law

 
republic, a government in which people elect representatives to rule for them

right, a legal promise

 
self-determination, the ability of the people in a country to decide their own government

 
term, the length of time for which an elected official serves

treaty, a formal agreement between two or more groups, especially countries

“trial by jury,” (phrase) a case of law decided by a group of one’s fellow citizens

 
unalienable, unable to be taken away or denied
    
    
+++++
    
    
Image Subtitles. George Washington. The Constitution. James Madison. The Constitutional Convention. American colonists believed that unfair taxes were being forced on them by the British government. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson stated the relationship between government and the people clearly. The British government and the king did not agree! The Declaration of Independence declared the colonies’ separation from Britain and their establishment as “free and independent states.” Americans had many ideas about government. Sometimes, they agreed. Other times, they did not. Each state put its constitution in writing. The British Parliament had long debated people’s rights and had moved to limit the rights of monarchs. It had also voted to impose new taxes in the colonies. During colonial times, Virginia’s House of Burgesses passed laws that affected Virginians. When people say the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag, they are also pledging allegiance, or loyalty, to the United States government. The Second Continental Congress first met in Philadelphia in May 1775, just weeks after the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the start of the American Revolution. Some Powers of the Central Government Under the Articles of Confederation. Declare war and make peace. Create an army and a navy. Send representatives to foreign countries. Borrow money. Establish a system of weights and measures. Establish post offices. Print money. The Articles of Confederation provided for a weak central government with few powers. The Northwest Territory. Notice which states eventually would be carved out of the Northwestern Territory. Arthur St. Clair, a leader during the Revolution, was appointed the first governor of the Northwest Territory. Many of the ideas in the new constitution came from James Madison. Delegates came to the Pennsylvania State House (now called Independence Hall) to try to save the government of the new nation. As delegates arrived, the sun came out. The people of Philadelphia were excited to see the delegates arriving. George Washington was a national hero. His presence inspired confidence in the convention. Philadelphians liked to greet Benjamin Franklin as he traveled from place to place in his sedan chair. The delegates had much to discuss. It would not be easy to unite everyone. George Washington was elected chairman, or leader, of the convention. Powers the Central Government Should Have. Protect the people against enemies. Protect the liberties of its citizens. Control trade between the states. Provide for the good of all the people. Raise money through some form of taxation. These are a few ideas that the delegates debated. Delegates at the convention designed a new plan of government for the United States. The Congress Passes laws. The President Carries out the laws of Congress. Suggests new laws. The Supreme Court Settles arguments about the law. The new government would be divided into three branches equal in power. Roger Sherman of Connecticut presented a plan that shared legislative power between large and small states. The slave trade continued despite the fact that many people were against it. So many difficult decisions about America’s future were discussed and decided upon in Philadelphia between May and September 1787. The Ratification Process. Constitutional Convention. State Conventions. Approval by 9 of 13 states. Ratifying the Constitution would not be a simple task. It had taken many months of hard work, but the delegates were able to sign a new Constitution for the United States. Now all Americans were given a chance to read this historic document. The Federalist Papers set out to explain the ideas behind the creation of the U.S. Constitution. The Bill of Rights outlines the rights of the people. Independence Day, July 4, is celebrated throughout the United States each year. Today’s America looks very different from the America of the 1790s. Within the Capitol building, the Senate and the House of Representatives discuss important issues. It is important to vote. By voting, people help shape the laws and expectations of their country.
     
   
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Lesson 28 – Suffixes 04: “-NESS”

The suffix “-NESS” means “state of, condition of.” Examples: “kindness” means a “state of being kind”; “haziness” means “a state of being hazy”; “fondness” means “a state of being fond.” Etc…

     
NEW WORDS: Ariana, Ashlee’s, Baldwin, Eeyore, Gillespie’s, Henderson, Hickman, Manny’s, Norah’s, Pablo, Pennington, Peters, Pilates, Pruitt, Rhonda’s, Saunders, Sebastian, Severus, Sheila, Snape, Velma, achiness, airiness, aptness, aridness, baklava, baldness, boldness, boniness, busyness, calmness, coldness, comprehending, compulsive, contemptible, counteract, coyness, coziness, dampness, denizens, dermatologist, dewiness, dictator’s, direness, dished, doneness, dopiness, drabness, dryness, dullness, easiness, eeriness, empathized, evilness, feigns, fibromyalgia, firmness, fondness, foulness, gaminess, glumness, goriness, grayness, guru, haziness, hokiness, holiness, hominess, hugeness, iciness, idleness, incited, issuing, kendo, laziness, limpness, lurking, lushness, meekness, mildness, nearness, obsessive, oiliness, oneness, openness, picket, rareness, rashness, rawness, rental, richness, ripeness, sameness, smugness, softness, sourness, spryness, tautness, tidiness, ugliness, vainness, vastness, vileness, waviness, workaholic, wryness   
   
   

With smugness, the favored debate team stood up for their final argument.
   
My Mom’s constant achiness is due to her illness called fibromyalgia.
   
We now empathized more with Pablo due to his openness about his difficult childhood.
   
We were shocked at the boniness of the hands of our great aunt Velma.
   
The grayness of the sky suggested that our picnic might get rained out.
   
Mr. Baldwin is a tough boss and does not look kindly upon idleness from his workforce.
   
Coach Hickman told me that I should have more firmness with my batting grip.
   
The calmness of the water belied the dangerous denizens lurking below the surface.
   
We were pleased with the airiness of our vacation home rental.
   
Ms. Henderson said that there was too much dopiness from all of us in our classroom yesterday.
   
On the surface, Rhonda’s apparent busyness seemed impressive; however, she really didn’t accomplish much.
   
The drabness of Mrs. Gillespie’s wardrobe suggested the need for her to gain a better fashion sense.
   
The sameness of Manny’s day-to-day job incited him to find a more interesting line of work.
   
My Grandpa’s aptness for learning foreign languages is amazing.
   
My older son is a workaholic, but my younger son is the poster child for laziness.
   
All of the men in my family line are destined for baldness as they get older.
   
The ugliness of the comments made by Senator Pruitt is contemptible.
   
I admit to a great fondness for baklava, if it is a dessert choice on the menu.
   
It took about three months for the hugeness of their invention to really sink in.
   
The African dictator’s policies and actions were the height of evilness in his country’s history.

I’m used to verdant landscapes, and the aridness of a desert climate is not my cup of tea.
   
The secret agent did everything that she could to avert the direness of her situation.
   
The foulness of the surrounding air suggested that we were near a paper mill.
   
Mom dished up a delicious LOOKING meal, but the gaminess of the meat was not to my taste.
   
My Gran’s spryness is not by accident; she does lots of exercising with Pilates and yoga.
   
The easiness with which Sheila hit the golf ball made me jealous.
   
The U.S. destroyer was alarmed about the nearness of the Russian nuclear submarine.
   
If it wasn’t for the rawness of my throat, I’d come out and play in the snow.
   
In the Winnie the Pooh tales, a cloud of glumness always seems to be hanging about Eeyore.
   
Though Sebastian feigns meekness, he is actually highly trained in kendo!
   
His holiness the Pope gave a sermon at St. Peters this morning.
   
There’s some kind of oiliness dripping from the car onto the garage floor.
   
The mountain condo that we rented had a nice coziness about it.
   
Tasting sourness in a wine is a sure sign that it has spoiled.
   
Though Sir Pennington was a highly accomplished knight, there was no vainness about him.
   
The clinical tidiness of her room suggests to me that she’s a bit obsessive–compulsive.
   
The eeriness of the cemetery spooked my little sister on Halloween night.
   
The ripeness of this peach is perfect; it’s sweet and juicy.
   
The goriness in this movie is way too much for our kids to be able to watch it.
   
The wryness of Norah’s humor suggests that she is quite witty.

The iciness of the sidewalks makes it very dangerous to walk on them.
   
I am so jealous of the waviness of Ashlee’s hair.
   
As we heard the cackling of the ghost, a great coldness enveloped the room.
   
The dampness in the basement is so bad that we need a dehumidifier down there.
   
The dullness of Mr. Saunders’ critical thinking skills makes me wonder how he got that promotion.
   
The richness of the dessert overwhelmed Dad, and he ate only two bites of his serving.
   
The spiritual guru talked to us about trying to find a oneness with the universe.
   
I need some hot sauce to counteract the mildness of this dish.
   
The dryness of her skin bothered her, so she went to see a dermatologist.
   
My feet got sopping wet from the dewiness of the grass.
   
This jewelry is so expensive because of the rareness of this gem.
   
I go barefoot in the house because I like the feel of the lushness of our carpet.
   
I really like the softness of this pillow.
   
With boldness, the employee crossed the union picket line because he needed the work to pay his bills.
   
When I saw the limpness of the flower, I quickly watered it.
   
There is no comprehending the vastness of outer space.
   
The weak comedy routine was full of hokiness.
   
Mom went into the kitchen to check the doneness of the roast.
   
Ariana was a master of coyness, and all the boys wanted to date her.
   
The tug-of-war was at a stalemate, and the tautness of the rope was at its maximum.

Rashness in making decisions that are this important will bite you back.
   
Don’t let the hominess of that witch’s cottage fool you; she’s doing evil magic inside of there.
   
When I saw the haziness of the noon sky, I knew that they’d be issuing an air quality alert.
   
Though there was a vileness to Severus Snape in the Harry Potter tales, he ended up being a good guy after all.

   
   
*********

    
     
Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
     

Lesson 29 – Closest Neighbors of the U.S.: Mexico and Canada

    
NEW WORDS: Alberta, Baja, Brunswick, Chichen, Cinco, Guanajuato, Itza, Lopez, Marge, Mexico’s, Milne, Miranda, Mounties, Nunavut, Popocatepetl, RCMP, Tories, Toronto, Winnipeg, Zocalo, antecessors, apperceived, aptitudes, blindfolded, bonjour, cavalcades, cheated, checkout, commonwealth, confectionaries, currencies, deceiver, dogsleds, ensemble, food’s, foolhardiness, hesitantly, igloos, inadequately, independencia, kith, leporid, loon, loonie, mariachi, mezzanine, multicultural, paragons, perky, pinata, pleasingly, provinces, reminiscence, slander, sledges, snowmobiles, sombreros, supremacy, tabernacles, tableland, tepee, tintinnabulation, tomatillos, traitors, unbiased, vacationists, valuables, vanquisher, violins, viva   
   
   

The Culture Of Mexico
   
Chapter One: Mexico, Past And Present
   
Pretend that you’re walking through Mexico City. It’s one of the biggest cities in the world. Soon, you come to some ruins. What you’ve found is big. You learn what went on 100s of years ago. The Aztec built huge cities. They had palaces and tabernacles. And Mexico City is built on the ruins of an Aztec city. It was called Tenochtitlan.
   
Later, you see a gorgeous church. It was built by the Spanish. They had come there in the 1500s. You stop to gaze at the church. But that’s not all that you see. Day turns to night. Now you come to modern buildings made of steel and glass. This is the Mexico City of today. It’s a city that is proud of its past and its future.
   
The Aztec, Spanish, and modern Mexican cultures today are all around you. You move through the crowds in the streets. You hear Spanish being spoken. But you also hear Nahuatl. That’s spoken by the Aztec. You smell foods such as beans and chilies. They’re eaten by people today. That’s just as they were by the Aztec of long ago. It has been a great day of exploring. Now it’s time to get some sleep!
   
The next day you’re up bright and early. You head to the main square. It’s called the Zocalo. Each morning there, an ensemble plays music. And soldiers raise the Mexican flag. The flag has three wide stripes. One is green. One is white. And one is red.
   
You walk across the square. You look closely at the white stripe in the flag. There’s an image of an eagle. It sits on a cactus plant eating a snake. This image tells a story. It’s about how the Aztec came upon an eagle. It was perched on a prickly pear cactus. It was eating a snake. For them, this was a sign. They thought that they had found the place where they should live. So, the Aztec settled in what is today Mexico City.
   
In Mexico, you meet folks who have two Spanish last names. This is just like in Spain. Lots of kids are given their father’s family name AND their mother’s family name. The father’s last name comes before the mother’s last name. A boy might be called Carlos Miranda Lopez. Miranda is his father’s last name. And Lopez is his mother’s last name.
   
You also find that Mexican children learn lots of the same subjects in school as you do. They learn math, science, and history. They learn geography, art, technology, and physical education. But instead of English, they learn Spanish. Lots of kids also speak native languages that have been spoken in Mexico for 100s of years! You have learned a lot about Mexico during your visit.

Chapter Two: The Geography Of Mexico
   
The U.S., Canada, Mexico, and the countries of Central America are on the continent of North America. Canada is to the north of the U.S. Mexico is to the south. On Mexico’s western coast are the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean. These two bodies of water are separated by a long strip of land. That’s the Mexican state of Baja California. To the east are the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
   
Part of the border between Mexico and the U.S. is a river that has two names. Mexicans call the river Rio Bravo. In the U.S., it’s called the Rio Grande. Both names mean that it is a large and mighty river. In fact, it is the longest river in Mexico. And it’s the fifth longest in all of North America.
   
For at least 1,000 years, folks have lived in the regions near the Rio Grande. They have used water from the river. That has helped them to farm on the dry land. Today, two dams on the river bring water to the farmland. This water helps farmers grow their crops.
   
Each year, 1,000s of vacationists from all over the world visit the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. A peninsula is a piece of land with water around it on almost all sides. The Yucatan Peninsula sticks out into the Gulf of Mexico. That’s at the southern tip of the country. It has beaches with white sand and bright blue water. Underwater divers come to explore the coral reefs of the Yucatan.
   
You’ll find tropical rainforests there. They are thick with green plants, trees, and animals. Tucked away among the trees there is a once-magnificent Maya city called Chichen Itza. This old Maya city is a great place to go to!
   
Much of the country is covered by mountains. Some of them are dangerous. That’s because they are volcanoes. There are about 3,000 volcanoes in Mexico! Mount Popocatepetl is one of their highest ones. It is almost 18,000 feet tall. The name means “smoking mountain.”
   
Between the mountain ranges on the east and west coasts of Mexico, there is a large plateau. A plateau is a high, flat area of land. This plateau has hills, mountains, and volcanoes. Mexico City and the colorful city of Guanajuato are located on the plateau. This is also where most of the Mexican people live. This tableland has Mexico’s best farmland.

Chapter Three: Celebrations In Mexico
   
Each year, on September 16, the president of Mexico stands on a mezzanine. This is at the National Palace in Mexico City. He shouts, “Viva Mexico! Viva la independencia!” In English, this means, “Long live Mexico! Long live independence!” The president does this to remind people of Mexico’s fight for independence from Spain. Mexicans celebrate their independence on this day.
   
The war that they fought lasted eleven years. Finally, in 1821, Mexico won their fight for freedom from Spain. Now, Independence Day is celebrated with red, white, and green fireworks. And there are parades and the tintinnabulation of church bells.
   
Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead on November 1 and 2. On those days, they recall their family members and friends who have died. They dress up in colorful costumes. And they even wear makeup! On the evening of November 1, families visit the graves of their loved ones. They bring food and candles. They clean the graves. They put flowers on them. At 6:00 PM, church bells start to ring. They ring every thirty seconds all through the night. Mexicans eat skull-shaped candy during the two days of reminiscence and celebration. They bring the confectionaries to the graves as gifts.
   
On the fifth of May, “el Cinco de Mayo,” Mexicans have a big celebration, or fiesta. There are colorful cavalcades. There are marching bands. Men, women, and children dance in the streets. There are tasty holiday foods. But why is this day special? Recall that Mexico won freedom from Spain. That was in 1821. But in the 1860s, France tried to fight with Mexico to take control of the country. On May 5, 1862, there was a key battle. France had a much bigger army. But Mexico was still the vanquisher! So, el Cinco de Mayo is remembered as one of Mexico’s biggest victories!
   
Let’s learn about a popular birthday party game in Mexico. It includes a pinata and a stick. A pinata is a colorful, fun model made from paper and glue. It’s filled with candy, toys, or other treats. Here’s the idea of the game. Each child takes turns trying to hit the pinata with the stick. At some point, it breaks open. Then all of the little valuables inside of it fall out. This may seem easy. But each person is blindfolded as they try!
   
Mariachi is a popular style of music in Mexico. Musicians play mostly stringed instruments. You’ll hear lots of guitars and violins. But trumpets can be included, too. Often, male mariachi musicians wear sombreros and short jackets. For lots of people, mariachi has a happy, perky sound.

Chapter Four: Senor Coyote and the Cheese – A Mexican Folktale
   
Senor Coyote stared up at the bright moon in the sky. He yawned. Then he scratched his tummy. “I’m hungry!” said Coyote to the moon. It was then that he saw a little white rabbit. Senor Coyote crept toward the little leporid. It was sitting on the edge of a small lake. “Ha! I think that you will fill my tummy quite pleasingly,” said Coyote to the rabbit.
   
“Oh!” said the little white rabbit. “I have something even better. Can you see the tasty yellow cheese in the lake? It’s just waiting for someone to eat it. But I can’t reach it.” Coyote looked out across the lake. He apperceived that there was yellow cheese in the water. He licked his lips. He loved cheese. “But perhaps you can’t swim,” said the rabbit.
   
“Don’t slander me! I try to be unbiased about my aptitudes. But, in fact, I’m really a superb swimmer,” said Coyote proudly.
   
“Then you must swim out and get the cheese,” said the little white rabbit. “While you do that, I’ll get some tortillas and tomatillos. When you get back, we’ll have a feast!”
   
Coyote dipped a paw in the water. “Wait! How can I be sure that you’ll be here when I get back?” he asked.
   
“I’ve been dreaming about tasting that cheese for hours,” said the rabbit. “I’ll be right here when you get back!”
   
Coyote nodded and said, “Well, I hope that I’m not about to be a victim of foolhardiness.” He then jumped into the lake. He kept his eyes on the cheese as he swam through the water. But for some strange reason, he could not quite reach it. The cheese was always just in front of him. Coyote even tried twice to grab the cheese. But he could not. Instead, he swallowed lots of water. He eventually grew tired. In the end, he swam back to the shore.
   
“At least there’s the little white rabbit to munch on,” thought Coyote as he shook the water from his fur. But the rabbit was nowhere to be found. All that Coyote could see was a pretty, round, yellow moon in the night sky. The rabbit turned out to be quite a deceiver!

Canada And The Exploration Of North America
   
Chapter One: A Visit To Canada
    
THE BIG QUESTION. What are some of the differences today between Canada and the U.S?
   
Dear Mom and Dad,
   
I’m having a great time here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Aunt Sue and Uncle Rick are taking good care of me. My cousin Joe is fun to play with. And my other cousin Marge is really smart. And she tells me lots of neat stuff.
   
I have to admit something. When I got here last week, I was viewing the trip quite hesitantly. You told me that I’d have a great time seeing our Canadian kith and kin. And you showed me on a map that Canada was the country just north of home in the U.S.  
   
But I found that things were different when I got to Toronto. It’s a long way from our home in Kansas. I got off the plane at the airport. I took in the sights. Then I said to myself, “I’m really not in Kansas anymore.”
   
I was also scared about a few other things. Maybe the Canadians would wear different clothes. And what if they spoke a language that I didn’t understand. Maybe they’d eat all kinds of foods that I did not like! I was nervous about stepping into a whole new world inadequately prepared.
   
Well, it turned out that things were not much different than in the U.S. For instance, the food is the same. On my first day here, I had pancakes for breakfast. I had pizza for lunch. And for dessert, I had chocolate ice cream!
   
In a lot of ways, Canada’s much like home. Folks in Toronto speak English. And the streets and neighborhoods look like they do in the big cities at home. The TV channels even play a lot of my favorite shows!
   
There’s even more that’s alike. On my second day here, Aunt Sue took me to the grocery store. We were at the checkout counter. The clerk said, “That will be thirty dollars and eighty-two cents, please.” I was amazed again! Dollars and cents. Even the money here was just like the money back home. I wondered if I’d even left the U.S. at all.

(Editor’s note. Yes, the U.S. and Canada each call their main currency a “dollar.” But that does not mean that each country’s “dollar” has the same value. If you go to another country, you give them U.S. dollars. In exchange, you get that country’s currency back in what U.S. dollars are worth. The Canadian dollar is worth about 75 cents U.S. – at the time of this writing. You go to a Canadian bank. You give them $75 U.S. You get back $100 Canadian. Or look at it the other way. You come from Canada to a U.S. bank. You give them $100 Canadian. Your exchange gives you back $75 U.S. Your buying power is roughly the same in both countries. So, you did not get “cheated” if you’re from Canada. It’s just that currencies are valued differently from country to country.)
   
Later, though, I saw that some things were not the same. I noted one thing as we paid for our things at the store. I saw Aunt Sue hand the clerk some paper money. I did not recognize it. I asked her if I could see the money when we left. So, she showed me their twenty-dollar bill. On the front was a picture of someone who I’d not seen before.
   
Aunt Sue said, “That’s the British monarch.” I asked her why the ruler of Great Britain, the king or the queen, was on Canadian money. “I know that you study your American history at school,” my Aunt Sue said. “Well, 100s of years ago, England had supremacy over a lot of land in North America. They ruled over the 13 Colonies, as you know. Those colonies were the ones that started a revolution. They became the U.S. in the 1700s. But Canada was also a British colony. It is not anymore. Over the years, it became an independent country, as well. But Canada is still a close friend of Great Britain. And we’re proud of our British culture and heritage. In fact, the ruling British monarch is technically Canada’s head of state.”
   
“Does that mean that they’re in charge of Canada?” I asked.
   
“No, not at all,” said Aunt Sue. They’re a symbolic leader. This is a reminder of our history and friendship with England. Canada is actually a republic. That’s just like in the U.S. The people rule through their elected representatives. Our top official is called the prime minister. He or she has about the same power as the U.S. President. Also, have a look at this. It’s a one-dollar coin. It has the British monarch on it, too.”

I looked at the gold-colored coin that she handed me. On one side was a picture of the queen. On the other side was a picture of a bird. It looked sort of like a duck. “That bird is a loon,” Aunt Sue said. “Some people call the one-dollar coin a loonie because of that.”
   
I laughed. I said that it was a funny name for money. And she laughed too. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “But I think that picture shows something important about Canada. It is a large country. Its landmass is way larger than the U.S. But look at things in terms of people. The U.S. has about eight times the population as Canada. A lot of our country is wilderness. These are natural regions where few to no humans live. But in the wilderness, a lot of creatures live, like the loon. We value these parts of the country. And you can tell. That’s because we put animals on our coins. Here, have a look at another.”
   
Aunt Sue passed me a five-cent coin. On its back, there was a picture of a furry animal. It had a wide, flat tail. But I did not know what it was. Aunt Sue said that it was called a beaver. “I think that beavers are cool creatures,” she said. “They can gnaw down trees with their teeth! They are also important to our history. Let’s go back to the days when Canada was a colony. Thousands of people came from Europe because of them.”
   
“Why?” I asked. “Did they want to see beavers chop down trees with their teeth?”
   
Aunt Sue laughed. She said, “No. It was because in Europe in those days, the most popular kind of hat was made from beaver fur. Folks could make a lot of money selling the fur. So, they came here to trap the beavers.”
   
We got back to Aunt Sue’s house. Cousin Marge was there watching TV. The people on the TV were speaking. But I did not understand what they were saying. I was already nervous. I thought that the Canadians spoke English!

Marge saw that I was puzzled. She said, “The show’s in French. In fact, on this channel, all the shows are in French.” I was still confused, at first. But Marge explained this to me. Canada was colonized by both the English and the French. Thus, today, both languages are spoken in Canada. Most of Ontario speaks English. But in other parts of the country, such as Quebec, the people speak French. She also told me that all Canadians learn to speak both English and French in school. Lots of signs around the country are in both English and French, too. Further, everything that the government says has to be said in both languages!
   
Marge turned off the TV. She asked me, “What do you know about the people of Canada?”
   
“Not much,” I said.
   
“Well, I think that we can fix that,” she said. “Did you know that Canada is a multicultural country? The largest group of Canadians is made up of people whose ancestors were settlers from England. The second-largest group are the people whose antecessors were from France. But lots of other groups came here, too. Let’s take the west coast of Canada. There are lots of folks whose families came from countries in Asia, such as China. Lots of them speak an Asian language as well as English or French.”
   
“But the people who have been here the longest are the indigenous peoples. They were here long before the English and the French came. For years, most folks called them Indians. That’s like the Americans did with their indigenous peoples. But now many Canadian indigenous groups prefer to be called either First Nations or First Peoples.”
   
There is one other thing I have noticed since being here. Canadians seem to know a lot about ice and snow. My cousin Joe says that even here in southern Canada, it’s freezing cold most of the winter. Joe likes the snow and ice. That’s because winter is hockey season. He’s got his own hockey stick, skates, and pads. And there are pictures of hockey players all over his bedroom walls. Canadians seem to be as crazy about hockey as Americans are about baseball and football.
   
So, Mom, Dad, don’t fret about me. I’m having lots of fun. I’m learning a lot about Canada. I’m still glad that the food’s not too different, though. In fact, do you know what the national symbol of Canada is? It’s the leaf from the maple tree. That’s the tree whose sap is used to make syrup for pancakes. And you know how much I love maple syrup. Each time that I see a Canadian flag with a maple leaf on it, I get a bit hungry!
   
Love, Sam.

Chapter Two: The Story Of Canada
   
THE BIG QUESTION. What kinds of things do the U.S. and Canada share in their histories?
   
So, you’ve now read Sam’s letter to home. He learned that French and English are the two main languages of Canada. This is because, as early as the 1500s, lots of folks from both France and England moved there. But by the time they came, people had already lived in Canada for 1000s of years. These groups had their own customs and traditions. They had their own languages and religions.
   
Let’s go to the far north. We take you to the Canadian Arctic. Here, there lived a people called the Inuit. They still live there now. And they have a rich culture. For most of the year, their lands are covered with ice and snow. But the Inuit have learned how to survive there. And that’s with just limited resources.
   
For 100s of years, the Inuit hunted whales, walruses, seals, and polar bears. It was so cold that parts of the sea were frozen. They learned how to fish in it. They would cut holes in the ice. They moved across the snow on sledges pulled by dogs. When they were far from home, they made shelters out of blocks of snow. These snow homes were called igloos. Today, life for the Inuit has changed a lot.
   
The west coast of the country is not as cold and snowy. Unlike the north, it is covered with trees. Those who lived there made their homes out of wood. They used wood to make lots of other things, too. One key item was a totem pole. A totem pole is a tall post. It has carved designs of animals and people. Totem poles are part of lots of First Nations’ religions.
   
In the center of Canada are wide open plains. These are much like the Great Plains in the U.S. Those who lived in this region survived by hunting buffalo. They were always on the move. They would follow the buffalo herds. So, they devised a kind of house to fit their lives. This was a house that they could pick up and take with them. It was a cone-shaped tent called a tepee.

The east coast of Canada was home to people who lived by hunting and farming. They were not nomadic like the people of the plains. They settled in one place. They lived in big homes called longhouses. These were the folks who the European explorers and settlers first met. That’s when they sailed the Atlantic in the late 1400s and early 1500s.
   
But who were the first Europeans to find North America? This may be a surprise to you. They were actually the Vikings. And they came to the New World around the year 1000. The Vikings reached the coastal regions of northeastern Canada. They went to today’s northern Newfoundland. They called it Vinland.
   
You’ve learned a lot in prior lessons about those from Europe who came to the New World. Here are a few reminders. Explorers found that Canada had other things to offer than the gold that had been typically hoped for. This new land had resources such as fish and beaver fur. Canada was full of fish. It could be dried and sent back to Europe for folks to eat. And rich Europeans would pay a lot of cash for hats that were made from beaver fur.
   
And where did folks move to when they came to Canada? The French settled the region along the St. Lawrence River. On the banks of that river, they built two cities. These were Montreal and Quebec. They called their part of this land New France.
   
Then you’ll recall the French and Indian War. In 1759, the British attacked Quebec. That was the main city of New France. The French troops had a strong defensive position. They were on top of a tall cliff. But the British had a clever plan to attack them. They sailed up the river at night. They climbed the cliffs in the darkness. The fighting left lots of troops dead. In fact, both the British and the French generals were killed. But the British won this fight. So, as the war came to an end, they took control of all of New France.
   
Now, all of Canada was to be ruled by the British. And that’s though lots of Frenchmen still lived there. But the British made a promise to the French. They could keep their culture and language. Now a few hundred years later, today’s country of Canada has kept that promise.

And, of course, you’ll recall the American Revolution. Thousands of folks from the 13 colonies moved north to Canada. That’s because it had stayed loyal to the British crown. And these colonists, too, did not want to break from England. They were called “Loyalists,” or “Tories.” Some Americans thought that these people were traitors. But the new Canadians thought that they were being loyal to their king. In the end, Canada remained a British colony after the Revolutionary war.
   
In the 1800s, Canada spread westward. They went all the way to the Pacific Ocean. (The U.S. would head to the west at the same time.) European Canadians moved to regions where just indigenous peoples had lived before. They would often treat these people badly. They would push them off of their land. This same kind of thing went on in the U.S., as well. These are not proud moments in either U.S. or Canadian history.
   
But one group of Canadians would treat the indigenous peoples with respect. This group was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“RCMP“), or “Mounties.” In the late 1800s, western Canada was like the Wild West in the U.S. It was a violent place. People often broke the law. That’s because there was no one to stop them. The Mounties were set up to bring law and order to the region. And they were there to help protect the indigenous people, too. They wore bright red uniforms. And the Mounties rode on horses to track down criminals. They were quite brave. And they were great at catching criminals. They became paragons of “respect for law for all” to people all over the country.
   
As time passed, Canada, like the U.S., broke away from Britain. But it did so without a revolution. Through the late 1800s and early 1900s, the British gave Canada more and more say in running their own country. As late as 1982, that’s when Canada became fully independent from Great Britain.
   
Today, Canada is as free as the U.S. But it still remembers and respects its ties with Great Britain. It is part of the Commonwealth of Nations. That’s a large group of countries that were once Great British colonies.

Chapter Three: The Sights Of Canada
   
THE BIG QUESTION. How do people take advantage of the resources that are found where they live?
   
As you’ve just read, Canada is like the U.S. in a lot of ways. It is on the continent of North America. It’s just north of the U.S. And it stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Canada is even larger than the U.S. That’s when you look at landmass. It is the second-largest geographic country in the world. Only Russia is larger. But Canada’s population is small. They have some 40 million people. Compare them to the U.S., which has about 300 million people. One reason that Canada has a smaller population is its climate. Northern Canada is very cold in the winter. Since it is so cold there, most Canadians live in the south. That’s near the border.
   
Canada is split into smaller regions. They’re called provinces and territories. There are ten provinces. These are a bit like the U.S. states. Each has their own capital city.
   
Look at the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. There are five provinces there. They are Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Labrador. They were settled in the 1500s by the English and French. These settlers caught fish to send back to Europe. Today, lots of folks there still make a living fishing.
   
A visitor to this region would see lots of fishing villages and small harbors full of boats. You also might see something very exciting. That would be a whale. This region of the Atlantic is home to these huge mammals. Lots of folks take boats out to sea. They hope to get a close-up look at a whale.
   
West of the Atlantic provinces is a large province called Quebec. Most folks here speak French as their first language. Lots of street and highway signs here are in French, as well as in English. The people of Quebec are proud of their language and traditions. So, what should you do if you meet someone in Quebec? Be sure to say “bonjour” instead of “hello!”

Quebec is home to two key cities. They are Montreal and Quebec City. Both are on the St. Lawrence River. Quebec City is the capital of Quebec. It’s a gorgeous place. It’s full of old buildings from the 1700s and 1800s. Some of the buildings look like the ones that you’d see in European cities.
   
To the west of Quebec is the province of Ontario. More people live here than in any other province. Canada’s capital city is Ottawa. It is in Ontario. So is its largest city, Toronto. Toronto is full of tall, modern buildings.
   
Now, head further west. The next province that you’ll find is Manitoba. It has huge lakes and verdant forests. Its capital city is Winnipeg. Manitoba was once a center for beaver trapping. But the most famous animal from Manitoba was not a beaver. It was a little black bear. This bear was the pet of a Canadian soldier. He took the bear to London. He gave it to the London Zoo.
   
One day, an English writer saw the bear in the zoo. He noticed that the bear’s name was Winnie. (The Canadian soldier had named her after his hometown, Winnipeg.) This writer was A.A. Milne. He wrote a beloved story about an imaginary bear. He called his bear Winnie-the-Pooh.
   
Now let’s head west of Manitoba. We’ll find the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Saskatchewan has wide, flat plains on which farmers grow wheat. In Alberta they grow wheat, too. And they also raise cattle. As in the U.S., folks who help to raise cattle are called cowboys. Recently, though, the oil industry has also become important in this province.
   
On the western edge of Alberta are the Rocky Mountains. These are the same Rockies that run through the U.S. West of these mountains is the province of British Columbia. Much of the land there is forest. Lots of people there cut down trees to get lumber.

Now we move to places that are not “provinces.” Northwest Canada is split into three regions called territories. These are the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
   
The Yukon Territory is named for the Yukon River. It flows through Canada and Alaska. In the late 1800s, gold was found there. Folks from all over the world hoped to get rich by finding gold. But most of them went home disappointed. Today, the Yukon has a small population.
   
Even fewer people live in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. These regions are covered with ice and snow for eight months of the year. The Hudson Bay is a large body of water south of Nunavut. You may recall that it’s named after English explorer Henry Hudson. It is frozen part of the year.
   
Lots of the people who live in these territories are Inuit. In fact, Nunavut has been set aside as a special Inuit homeland. (Nunavut means “Our Land” in the Inuit language.) In lots of ways, the lives of the Inuit have changed. Today, most Inuit homes are made of wood, not snow. And the Inuit now are more likely to ride on snowmobiles than dogsleds. But the Inuit still hunt the same animals that their ancestors hunted. What if you were invited to an Inuit dinner? You might be served walrus, seal, or caribou!
   
It’s good for Americans to know about Canada. That’s because this country is our next-door neighbor. It’s always good to know your neighbors. But Canada and the U.S. aren’t just neighbors. They’re close friends, too.
   
If you go to Canada, you’ll get a warm welcome. Canadians will be eager to show you around. They’re proud to tell you more about their country. If you go in the winter, remember to dress very warmly. Bring your coat and gloves. And you’ll need a hat to keep your head warm. But it does not have to be made from beaver fur!

    
   
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Core Knowledge (R) Independent Reading
   
(Review guidelines for publishing Core Knowledge (R) materials at the bottom of this page-view. This lesson is a “READ-ALOUD” Core Knowledge (R) passage that has been rewritten to be at a lower-grade independent reading level complexity than the original, largely by shortening and simplifying sentence structures while maintaining the richness of the text content.)
    

Lesson 30 – Organisms And Their Habitats

    
NEW WORDS: Angelica, Audubon, Audubon’s, Bakewell, Chihuahua, Echinodermata, Emmanuel, Emmanuel’s, Gordie, Grinnell, Hentz, Indiangrass, Maldonado, Maldonado’s, Minolta, Rasmussen, Sibley, Sonora, Tucson, Wilson’s, adaptable, adaptations, aigrette, aligning, anatomical, appreciativeness, behavioral, bloodwood, bluestem, buffalograss, camouflaging, categorized, coccid, columnar, conserves, crustaceans, deathstalker, defecate, diarrhea, discharges, eclipsed, egret, evolutionary, flaky, fleshy, galls, genus, gramas, gumnut, herbaceous, hibernation, hydrated, illuminates, jolts, laterally, latex, manganese, mesic, milkweeds, mites, myrtaceae, needlegrasses, neurotoxin, omega, perennials, phosphorus, phylum, physiological, potassium, preen, proficiencies, saguaros, scarab, scrubland, seminal, serrations, shortgrass, sores, stinger, succulents, switchgrass, tallgrass, tessellated, tocking, tortoiseshell, tuberculosis, urchins, venomous, vertically, waterbags, wheatgrasses
   
   

Chapter One: Where Are The Butterflies?
   
It’s almost Teacher Appreciation Day. Mrs. Maldonado’s students have been thinking about doing something nice for their teacher. They want to show their appreciativeness for her great teaching proficiencies. They know that she loves science and being outside. Mrs. Maldonado especially loves butterflies.
   
Their class spends a lot of time in the school’s nature study area. They call it the land lab. “I have a thought!” Emmanuel says. “We’re going to the land lab on Friday, and I’ll bring my Minolta camera. We’ll take pictures of butterflies and make them into a book!”
   
On Friday, the class heads to the land lab. Emmanuel has his camera in his pocket. The students walk through the field and then along the path in the woods. They see birds, squirrels, and rabbits. One student is excited about seeing a scarab beetle. But no matter where they look, they can’t find any butterflies. Emmanuel is confused. Around his home there are tons of butterflies! He particularly likes the tortoiseshell butterfly. He wonders if he can bring some to the land lab, so he’ll ask his dad for help.
   
Saturday morning, Emmanuel and his father gently catch some butterflies in a big net. They place them in a mesh container. Emmanuel puts some cotton balls soaked with sugar water inside because he knows that butterflies like sweet liquids.
   
Emmanuel’s dad, Gordie, drives them to the school. They carry the butterfly containers to the land lab. Emmanuel discharges the butterflies out into the field. He plans to bring some friends back on Sunday to take the pictures that they need for Mrs. Maldonado’s book.
   
Emmanuel returns the next morning with his friends. They look all over the place, but the butterflies are gone! The clock is tick-tocking, time is running out to make Mrs. Maldonado’s gift, and they have just two weeks left!
   
Emmanuel and his friends decide that they will go to the local library. They will read as much as they can about butterflies. Then maybe they can solve the mystery of the disappearing butterflies in time for Teacher Appreciation Day.

Chapter Two: What Are Some Plant Habitats?
   
Emmanuel and his friends read more about butterflies. They learn that butterflies need plants for food and shelter, and they need plants to reproduce. They are found only in places where the specific plants that they need also live.
   
For instance, adult monarch butterflies eat nectar from flowers for food. The monarchs gather in certain types of trees when they travel long distances. Young monarch caterpillars eat only one type of plant, called milkweed. Milkweeds are herbaceous perennials. They give off “latex,” a milky substance that can actually be toxic to humans. Farmers hate it because it is also toxic to cows and other livestock. But it’s a critical nutrition source for monarchs.
   
Butterflies live in habitats all around the world. A habitat is the place where an organism lives. Habitats can vary a lot from place to place. The varied habitats that butterflies live in have lots of different types of plants. Emmanuel wants to learn about these kinds of habitats.
   
A tropical forest is a warm, rainy habitat. The trees are very tall, and their leafy tops form a thick layer that shades the ground below. The plants near the ground often have large leaves. That way, they can get as much light as possible. Some plants in tropical forests don’t even grow in soil. They grow on other plants!
   
Not all forest habitats are warm and wet year-round. Some forests have trees that lose their leaves in cooler weather. These trees grow new leaves again in the spring. There are many shapes of leaves. Nuts grow on some of the trees, and they drop to the forest floor and make a tasty meal for animals.

Plants live in desert habitats, too. Deserts are dry places. These plants don’t need much water to survive, but they do need some. Some desert plants have long roots to find water deep under the ground. Others have short roots that spread out close to the surface of the sandy soil. These roots can quickly soak up water from a rare rainfall.
   
Another kind of plant habitat is a prairie. Prairies are flat areas with few trees. They are filled with grasses. Grass leaves are long and slim, and grass roots can take in a lot of water. Grasses can grow up to ten feet tall! As an example, in the Great Plains of the U.S., you’ll find three grass environments. The first is called “wet prairie.” There, the soil is moist, but it doesn’t drain well. The second is “mesic prairie.” Here, there’s good drainage and good moisture in the soil. The third is “dry prairie.” This is the least friendly place for agricultural or business development. In shortgrass prairies, you’ll find the gramas, buffalograss, needlegrasses, and wheatgrasses. In tallgrass prairies, you’ll find big bluestem, switchgrass, and Indiangrass.
   
Prairies also have herbs, which are small plants that have showy flowers lots of the time. Their bright flowers attract butterflies and other insects. Milkweed is one type of prairie plant. It is the only plant where monarch butterflies lay their eggs.
   
Think about the plants near your home. Are they tall or short; are they skinny or thick; do they have flowers or fruit? Plants can be very different. But all plants live where they do because they can get the air, water, and sunlight that they need there. They also provide food and shelter for butterflies and other living things in each type of habitat. Emmanuel wonders if the plants that grow in the land lab are the right kind for butterflies.

Chapter Three: Plants Change With The Seasons
   
Plant habitats differ from place to place, but a single habitat can change, too. These changes happen over time in patterns that are aligning with the seasons. Plants respond to the changes that the different seasons bring.
   
Of course, by now you know tons about all things seasonal. In spring, the weather warms, and there is more daylight. Leaf buds grow on the branches of trees. New plants sprout through the soil. A sticky material called sap begins to move from plant roots into the stems and leaves. Flowering trees bloom.
   
In summer, the days are long and warm. Plants soak up the sunlight and make food, and the food gives plants the energy that they need to grow. Many flowers bloom, and many fruits and seeds develop. Trees fill with leaves.
   
Then, after summer there’s autumn, or fall. In fall, days become shorter again, and there is less daylight each day. The shorter days and cooler temperatures cause plants to make less food. The leaves on trees change color in the fall, and flowers stop blooming. Fall is also when some fruits and seeds ripen. They soon fall to the ground. Apples ripen in fall.
   
In winter, the days are very short, and the temperatures are cooler. In places where winter is cold, plants stop growing. Their leaves, flowers, and fruit have fallen off. Plants no longer make food in the winter. Grasses turn brown in the winter because they aren’t making food.

Chapter Four: What Do Plants Need To Grow?
   
Plants can be flourishing in many different places. Plants come in all shapes and sizes, too. Some have flowers; some make fruit; some have tough, brown stems, while others have stems that are soft and green.
   
All plants need five things to survive, though. They need air, water, sunlight, nutrients, and room to grow. Plants live where they can get the amount of air, water, sunlight, nutrients, and space that they need. If these needs are not met, then plants cannot grow.
   
Some plants need a lot of water, and they live in wet places. Some plants don’t need much water at all, and they can live in dry places, like deserts. Different types of plants live in the places where they can get just the right amount of water. Succulents are particularly interesting, as they thrive in very arid areas. They have thick, fleshy tissues, and water may be stored in either the stems or the leaves, depending on the variety of the plant. Almost all of them have deep or broad root systems.

The Saguaro cactus is a unique type of succulent. It grows only in the Sonoran Desert, which is in southern Arizona (especially around Tucson) and in western Sonora, Mexico. They are large, tree-like columnar cacti that develop branches (or arms) as they age, although some never grow arms. These arms generally bend upward and can number over twenty-five. Saguaros are covered with protective spines, white flowers in the late spring, and red fruit in summer. With the right growing conditions, it is estimated that saguaros can live to be as much as 150-200 years old! Saguaro are very slow growing cactus. A 10-year-old plant might only be 1.5 inches tall. Saguaro can grow to be between 40-60 feet tall. When rain is plentiful, and the saguaro is fully hydrated, it can weigh between 3200-4800 pounds!
   
Another interesting desert plant is the desert bloodwood tree, of the family Myrtaceae. You’ll find it in northern Australia. It’s a tree that can grow to 48 feet tall, and it has brown, flaky, tessellated (like tiles) bark. The white flowers appear in clusters of seven at the ends of the branches during autumn and winter. The fruit is a large, urn shaped gumnut which is typical of the genus. The tree is often host to galls produced by the larvae of the coccid moth. Called bush coconuts, these galls contain an edible grub and edible white flesh similar to a coconut. The galls are apple-sized and have a rough exterior. Bloodwood trees produce a red sap which was used by Aboriginal people as a medicine for sore eyes, wounds, burns and sores. It was also used as a tanning agent for kangaroo skin waterbags. Wooden bowls were also made from the bark of this tree by removing an oval-shaped section from the trunk. The fruits were used for decorative purposes.

Different plants also need different amounts of sunlight. Some must live in shady environments, while some need bright, direct sunlight. Different types of plants live where they can get just the right amount of sunlight.
   
Plants of the tropical forest floor grow in the shade of the taller trees. Plants in a desert habitat need little water. They can survive in hot, bright sunlight.
   
Farmer Angelica grows sunflowers outside the town where Emmanuel lives. She farms sunflowers for their fruits. She plants rows of seeds once the weather is warm enough in the spring. The seeds will start to grow into plants if they get enough air, sunlight, nutrients, and water. All spring and summer, the sunflowers use water, air, and sunlight to grow bigger and bigger.
   
Farmer Angelica told Emmanuel about the monarch butterflies that travel to their area. She said that the butterflies fly through their area on their way to the northeast in the spring. Sometimes the butterflies stop and get nectar from the sunflowers, as this gives the butterflies energy to fly farther north.
   
In fall, the days get shorter and colder. Many outdoor plants will die off without enough sunlight and heat. Farmer Angelica watches her sunflowers. When the heads of the flowers tilt down and start to turn brown, it is time to harvest the fruits. By the way, sunflowers are amazing. The tallest sunflower on record measured in at 30 feet and 1 inch tall! And the largest sunflower head ever recorded reached a huge diameter of 32 inches!

Chapter Five: What Are Some Animal Habitats?
   
Emmanuel now knows that plants live in habitats around the world. These habitats include forests, deserts, prairies, mountains, and oceans. Animals live in these habitats, too. Like plants, different animals live in different places. They live where they can get the air, food, water, and shelter that they need. They live where they can survive and grow.
   
Some animals live in forests where trees lose their leaves in the fall. Birds and squirrels make nests in the trees. They find food on the forest floor. Deer eat leaves from the plants. Their coloring is good at camouflaging them within their habitat when danger is near. Rabbits, raccoons, and insects live in these forests, too. Many types of birds nest in forest trees. Lots of animals live in tropical forests, and these forests are warm and wet. Worms live in the wet soil in these forests, and they get food from the dead leaves. Moles dig burrows under the wet ground, and they eat insects that live under the ground.
   
Can you guess where a prairie dog lives? If you said in a prairie, then you’re right! They live in tunnels under the ground, and their burrows provide homes for other prairie animals. These could be toads and jackrabbits. Butterflies live in lots of varied habitats. Lots of them live in prairies. They get food from wildflowers. They lay their eggs on the plants, and when the caterpillars hatch, they eat the plants, too.
   
The desert and the tundra are dry habitats. A desert can be very hot, while the tundra can stay very cold. Both of these habitats have few trees.
   
Lizards and scorpions are two kinds of desert animals. Lizards have scales on their feet, and the scales protect them from the hot sand. Scorpions hunt at night when it is cooler. By the way, a scorpion is a nasty little beastie. It’s in the family with spiders, mites, and ticks, so it is an arachnid. And scorpions don’t just live in deserts. You can find them in such diverse places as Brazilian forests, British Columbia in Canada, North Carolina, and even the Himalayas! They are obviously very adaptable, and they’ve been around for hundreds of millions of years. Can you believe that there are some 2,000 species of scorpions? They are a formidable sight to see, with two front pincers and a nasty looking stinger on their tail. They inject venom into their victim with their stinger, and 25 or so of the species have venom so strong that it can kill humans.

The Hentz Striped Scorpion is believed to be the most frequently found scorpion in the United States. Thank goodness, there’s only one species in the U.S. that can actually kill humans. It’s the Bark Scorpion, found in Arizona, parts of New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. The potentially lethal venom that it packs is very powerful. It’s a neurotoxin that causes severe pain. Patients who have survived such a sting describe the pain akin to getting “severe electric jolts.” More serious cases include numbness, diarrhea, and vomiting as symptoms, which could lead to death.
   
But watch out! The most venomous scorpion in the world is the “deathstalker,” found in arid desert and scrubland regions in the Middle East and North Africa. While extremely dangerous, the unique chemical composition and scarcity of its venom also makes it the most valuable liquid (by volume) in the world, with an estimated cost of $39 million per gallon. It is prized by the medical community because its properties have been found to be effective in the treatment of cancer, malaria, and against bacteria such as tuberculosis.
   
The arctic hare lives in a dry, cold place. That’s the tundra. The hare has thick fur to keep it warm. Its fur is white in winter and brown in summer. It can hide from danger more easily. These hares do not hibernate, but they can survive the dangerous cold with a number of behavioral and physiological adaptations. They sport thick fur and enjoy a low surface area to volume ratio that conserves body heat, most evident in their shortened ears. These hares sometimes dig shelters in snow and huddle together to share warmth.
   
Not all animals live on land. Lots of them live in water. Some animals live in fresh water, which is water that is not salty. Lakes, rivers, and streams are freshwater habitats, and lots of kinds of fish live in fresh water. They have body parts that help them move in the water. They get oxygen that’s in the water, too. A flowing stream is the habitat for this trout.

Mussels are freshwater animals, too. They have shells that form in lots of shapes and colors. Special body parts help them remove tiny bits of food from the water. Freshwater mussels live in lake, river, and stream habitats. Although you might not have seen mussels in the wild, you have likely seen them on a menu! Mussels are very popular as food and are quite nutritious, as well. They’re low in sodium and saturated fat and a good source of Vitamins B and C, Omega 3 fatty acids and minerals like iron, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium.
   
Oceans are saltwater habitats. Plankton are tiny living organisms that drift with the water. Plankton are too small to be seen without a microscope. Some make their own food, and some eat other plankton. They are also food for other ocean animals, including whales. While on the subject of whales, let’s talk about krill. These are shrimp-like crustaceans that are just an inch or two long. On a feeding day during the foraging season, a North Pacific blue whale eats some SIXTEEN TONS of krill! That’s about the weight of a city bus.
   
Sea stars live in the ocean, too. There are many shapes, sizes, and colors of sea stars. Sea stars lack a number of fishy anatomical features, including gills, scales, or fins. Categorized in the phylum Echinodermata, they’re invertebrates, and they’re related to sand dollars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and sea lilies. Since they aren’t fish, scientists tend to get a bit irked when people call them “starfish.” Thus, “sea stars” is a more appropriate term. What’s the biggest fact that illuminates this difference? They don’t have fins, so they can’t swim around like fish can! But that doesn’t mean that they can’t move around. They have body parts that help them to move across the ocean floor. Another body part sucks up food in one swoop!
   
Animals in oceans can be quite small or quite large. Whales are some of the largest ocean animals. The blue whale is giant, and it can be as big as two or three school buses!
   
This chapter describes just a few creatures that live in Earth’s many habitats. Did you know that there are over eight million different kinds of animals on Earth? How can scientists group them? You can group animals by their body covering, by what they eat, and by whether they have a backbone. Mammals, fish, amphibians, and reptiles are some animals that have backbones. Animals that don’t have backbones include insects, snails, and coral.

Chapter Six: Animals Change With The Seasons
   
Plants change with the seasons. They sprout, bud, grow, and rest. Many animals respond to the seasons, too. Their bodies may change, and the way that they act may change, as well.
   
Spring is when many animals find a mate. A little while later, baby animals are born or hatched. This is a good time of year for animals to have young, as temperatures are warmer, and there is more food available.
   
During the summer, the days are long and warm. Young animals grow and learn how to survive. Animals that live underground come out of their dens to find food. Leaves, fruits, and seeds are plentiful, and there is food for meat-eating animals to catch and eat. Some animals shed their thick coats in summer. And summer is when baby animals grow the most.
   
Animals can sense the changes in fall, and they can tell that the days are getting shorter. They can feel the temperatures getting cooler. Some animals begin to prepare their winter homes, and they gather and store food. Squirrels stay in the same habitat year-round, and they bury nuts to eat over the winter.
   
Other animals move to a warmer place. Monarch butterflies cannot survive a cold winter. Instead, they travel south where the weather is warmer. This journey can be thousands of miles. The butterflies gather on trees to rest along the way. Monarch butterflies gather together in large groups as they travel when the seasons change.
   
Winter is cold in many places. Animals that don’t move to another place must find a way to stay warm. Some animals spend the winter in dens and burrows under the ground. They spend most days resting and sleeping. Their bodies do not use much energy, and this means that they also do not need much food. Many bears rest in dens during the winter.

Bear hibernation is an interesting topic. Lots of folks think that this means that they sleep all winter long. That’s not actually the case. Bears hibernate during winter, but they aren’t sleeping the whole time. Hibernation for bears simply means that they don’t need to eat or drink, and rarely urinate or defecate (or not at all). There is strong evolutionary pressure for bears to stay in their dens during winter, if there is little or no food available. But bears will leave their dens on occasion, particularly when their den gets flooded or is badly damaged. Weather does play a role. In the colder, northern parts of Alaska, for instance, bears hibernate about seven months of the year. Bears in the warmer, coastal regions of the state hibernate for two to five months, with the longer hibernation time for bears raising newborn cubs.
   
Bears have developed unique adaptive strategies in order to survive for so long without food and water. They lower their body temperature eight to twelve degrees, and they break down fat stores for energy. Some protein is used, as well, but bears largely conserve their muscle mass and thus do not become appreciably weaker during hibernation. Bears do wake up, however, and move around inside the den. It’s kind of like your dog sleeping. Bears will go through a lot of posture changes, where they wake periodically to shift around. It is thought that this helps to prevent pressure sores from developing. Bears also shift positions to better conserve heat.

Chapter Seven: Plants And Animals Depend On Each Other
   
Plants and animals live together in habitats, and they share the same space. They share some of the same resources, too. Many plants and animals depend on each other to survive. Some plants cannot make new, young plants without the help of animals. Many animals would not have food or shelter if it weren’t for plants. Many plants depend on animals to help them make new plants. Insects such as bees and butterflies land on flowers. They pick up a sticky powder called pollen, and then they carry the pollen to another flower. The plant uses this pollen to reproduce.
   
Larger animals carry fruits or seeds on their bodies. They can stick to an animal’s fur. Squirrels bury seeds or fruits and forget about them. Some animals also eat plants and fruits from plants, and then they leave the seeds in their droppings.
   
Many animals depend on berries, buds, leaves, or fruits from plants for food. Birds, frogs, raccoons, and apes are some animals that use plants for shelter. Some animals climb trees for safety. Plants provide shelter for butterflies, and they also provide food. Butterflies drink a sweet nectar that flowers produce. Caterpillars hatch on plants and eat the leaves while they grow.

You have read a lot about many different types of plants, animals, and their habitats. Emmanuel has, too! He now knows that butterflies depend on certain plants for food. He knows that butterflies cannot live in a habitat where those types of plants do not grow. Emmanuel also knows that for the right plants to grow and attract butterflies, the plants also must get what they need in their habitats.
   
Emmanuel and his friends discovered in the library that caterpillars like violets and milkweed. The caterpillars get energy from eating the plants. The group discovered that butterflies like a lot of flowers with nectar. The butterflies need a lot of food as they migrate. Each flower bed where the butterflies stop is a place to rest and get food. This gives Emmanuel an idea! What if the class added flowering plants to the land lab to attract butterflies? This could make a nice gift for Mrs. Maldonado, even better than a picture book.
   
Emmanuel shares his idea with his classmates. They want butterflies to live at the land lab someday, so the students secretly meet with their principal, and they get permission to plant a butterfly area in the land lab. They want butterflies to return there year after year. They will choose wildflowers that grow naturally year after year in this particular habitat, too.
   
On their next trip to the land lab, Mrs. Maldonado’s students surprise her with their plan. They show her their list of plants and where they will plant them. They also present her with the sign that will be placed among the flowers. It says, “Mrs. Maldonado’s Butterfly Garden.”

Chapter Eight: Science In Action – A Visit With A Naturalist
   
Mrs. Maldonado loves the plan for a butterfly habitat that Emmanuel and his classmates have made for her. They discuss how they will create the habitat, and they talk about how they must choose plants that are right for the habitat area. They discuss how the plants will make it a home for butterflies and other animals. Do they want it to look like a garden, or do they want to plant a more natural meadow? They want to make the place as much like a natural habitat as they can, and it is also important to protect natural habitats.
   
Learning about habitats is the first step in protecting them. Tomorrow, the class will visit a nature center, and they will meet a naturalist. The naturalist will show the students how to observe living things in their habitats. When scientists make observations, they use tools and their senses to collect and record information. Observations help scientists understand and protect living things.
   
When the students arrive at the nature center, they meet the naturalist named Ms. Rasmussen. Ms. Rasmussen takes them into the woods, and she shows them different ways to observe living things. They use hand lenses to look at insects under a fallen log. They watch a robin build a nest in a nearby tree. They see squirrels digging for nuts and seeds. They use small shovels to find worms in the soil.
   
Ms. Rasmussen shows the class how to record their observations in a notebook. They write the date and time, they write notes about what they see, and they draw pictures, too.

Next, the naturalist takes them to a wetland habitat. They hear a bullfrog calling from a wet pond. They spot a red-winged blackbird clinging to a reed. They watch a dragonfly land on a flower. They see an egret using its long beak to hunt for fish in the shallow water. Egrets are wading birds, closely related to herons with generally long legs, necks, and bills, as well as short tails. Necks that can bend vertically but not laterally characterize them. The sixth neck vertebra is especially long, causing the familiar “S” shape to their necks. Herons and egrets have comb-like serrations on the edges of their middle claws, which help to preen feathers that are inaccessible by their bills. Many egret species can be identified by wispy, lace-like plumes (called aigrette feathers), which the males sport during the breeding season. The students count all of these animals that they see, and they record these observations in their notebooks.
   
The class goes into a building at the nature center. Students will spend some time there comparing what they recorded in their notebooks. The sign on the front of the building says “Audubon Center.” Ms. Rasmussen asks, “Does anyone know why this place is called an Audubon center?” Then she explains. The name on the building refers to a naturalist named John James Audubon. This nature center is part of a big organization of many nature centers that are named after Mr. Audubon. The students also discover that learning about John James Audubon is what made Ms. Rasmussen want to become a naturalist!
   
John James Audubon (1785-1851) was a naturalist and a painter. He lived during the time when the United States of America was a new country. For half a century, he was the young country’s dominant wildlife artist. His seminal “The Birds of America,” a collection of 435 life-size prints, quickly eclipsed Alexander Wilson’s work and is still a standard against which 20th and 21st century bird artists, such as Roger Tory Peterson and David Sibley, are measured. He spent a lot of time observing birds in their natural habitats, and he made paintings of those birds in their habitats. He even tied strings around the legs of some birds so that he could track them. He found that the birds returned to the same place year after year.
   
Lucy Bakewell Audubon, Audubon’s wife, was a teacher. She taught a student named George Bird Grinnell. Grinnell went on to form a group to study and protect birds, and he named the group the Audubon Society. The Audubon Society still studies and protects birds, their habitats, and other wildlife.

   
   
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Click on this link to move forward to Module F, Lessons 31 – 40
   

      
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