The Curse of the Volcano

Set a purpose for reading by calling attention to the featured skill printed in the upper left corner of the first page.

Read the article once through as a shared, guided, or independent reading.

• After students read the article, follow the prompts in the “Help the Lazy Editor” box to find sentences within the text that highlight the featured grammar skill. This can be completed as a class, in small groups, or individually.
• After finding mentor sentences containing the featured grammar skill, have students think about the different ways the skill is used. Then have students write some rules for the skill based on their observations.
• Next, using the rules they just created, have students edit the last paragraph of the article, in which the Lazy Editor forgot to fix some mistakes.
• Last, have students write their own paragraph using the featured skill. If using the Lazy Editor as a mini-lesson for writing workshop, students can then apply the featured skill to revising their own compositions.   
  

• Use the Scavenger Hunt activity. In this activity, students mine articles throughout the magazine for more mentor sentences that highlight the featured skill.
• Use the additional skill reinforcement activity provided.