READ THE FOLLOWING TWO TEXTS THEN WRITE AN ESSAY:
BUTTERFLY HOUSE by Eve Bunting
When I was just a little girl I saw a small black creature like a tiny worm, and saved it from a greedy jay who wanted it for lunch.
I carried it inside, safe on it’s wide green leaf. My grandpa said it was a larva and soon would be a butterfly.
We laid the larva carefully on thistle leaves inside an empty jar, put in a twig for it to climb–then made a lid of soft white paper all stuck around with glue.
My grandpa knew exactly what to do. “I raised a butterfly myself,” he said, “when I was just your age.”
How strange to think my grandpa once was young like me. “We would have been best friends if I’d been there back then,” I said.
My grandpa smiled. “It worked out anyhow. We’re best friends now.”
Up in his room we found a box. I cut a window in its side, then covered it wit screen. Soon I could look inside and see my larvae looking back at me.
What would she see? A human face so big and scary, strange and starey? What would she think?
“I want it pretty till she goes,” I said.
And so Grandpa and I drew flowers on colored paper. Cone flowers, purple-blue, and marigolds, lantana, bright as flame, and thistles, too.
We wedged a garden twig inside the box for her to walk on, so her wings could dry once she became a butterfly.
My grandpa knows the flowers butterflies like best.
The ones they can rest and drink the sweet, clear nectar.
We glued the painted flowers inside the box so it was bright with color. Made a sky above, the lid all blue with small white cotton clouds, and green with tops of trees that seemed to sway in soundless air.
I made a curve of rainbow like a hug to keep her safe while she was there. We set the jar inside and closed the painted lid. Through the screened window I could see the garden house. A place of flowers and space and waiting stillness.
Each day I put out leaves for food and watched my larvae change.
My grandpa knew when it was time to gently pull away the paper top she hung from. I taped it to the wall inside her house and let her be. She would hang free inside the chrysalis that kept her hidden from the world.
Inside that magic place she grew, transformed herself, came out, drooped, limp and slack, with crumpled wings. She was a butterfly, all spotted, orange, black, and brown as if someone had shaken paints and let the drops fall down.
“Our Painted Lady,” Grandpa said. “It’s time.”
He meant that it was time for her to leave for her new life. I swallowed tears. From the beginning I had known today would come. Now it was here.
My grandpa took my hand. “Cry if you like,” he said. “We understand.”
We carried out the box and raised the lid. I watched her falter as she felt the first warm touch of sun, saw trees, felt breezes brush across her wings. She rose, then rested on the fig tree branch. I saw her fly.
“Good-bye.”
FROM TADPLE TO FROG by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
In the spring, you may see frog eggs in the still water of a pond. Each egg is a ball of clear jelly with a small, dark center.
Hundreds of eggs stick together in a clump called frog spawn. Inside the eggs, tiny tadpoles are growing. At first, they look like small, dark specks. In a few days, little heads and tails take shape. Soon, the tadpoles are big enough to wiggle out of their eggs. After feeding on the jelly of their eggs for a while, the tadpoles wave their tails and swim away. Gills on the outside of a tadpole’s body help it breathe underwater.
The tadpole’s main job is to eat and grow. Many of the tadpoles will be eaten by hungry bugs, fish, or turtles. But, a few escape. They will grow to be frogs.
Tadpoles do not look much like the frogs they will become! A tadpole has a strong tail for swimming. The tadpole has a hard mouth. It uses its mouth to scrape soft plants from the rocks and pebbles in the pond.
After a few weeks, the tadpole has grown two hind legs. And the tadpole’s gills have moved inside its body.
Lungs are beginning to form inside the tadpole’s body, too. Now and then, it swims up. The tadpole puts its head out of the water. It takes little breaths of air. As the tadpole’s lungs grow stronger, its gills shrink away.
Two front legs begin to grow where its gills once were. By the time it is about two months old, the tadpole’s mouth has become wider. The tadpole starts to eat small bugs.
For a few more weeks, the tadpole’s tail shrinks and shrinks. Now the tadpole’s strong legs and it’s webbed feet help it swim. The tadpole has changed into a small frog!
Soon the little frog will leave the pond. The frog spends much of its time out of the water. But it likes to stay wet, so it does not go far.
The little frog catches bugs and worms. It swallows them in its wide mouth. The frog eats and grows. It gets a little bigger every day. After about two or three years, the frog is fully grown.
Every spring there will be new frog eggs in the pond.
WRITING FOR THE TEST Kinds of Prompts
INFORMATIONAL: Both passages talk about the early stages of frogs and butterflies. Write and essay where you teach all about the development from a tadpole to a frog and a chrysalis to a butterfly.
1. Intro-stake a claim
2. Body of paragraph one–give evidence from passage 1 or 2
3. Body of paragraph two–give evidence from other passage
4.Conclusion–re-state your claim and say more about it
THEMATIC: Both passages teach us that the early stages of life can be delicate for frogs and butterflies. Explain how survival depends on many things.
1. Intro-stake a claim
2. Body of paragraph one–give evidence from passage 1 or 2
3. Body of paragraph two–give evidence from the other passage
4. Conclusion–re-state your claim and say more about it
ARGUMENT: Which creature would you rather care for in it’s early stages, a frog or a butterfly?
1. Intro–take a side
2. Body paragraph one–prove and support your side with evidence from ONE passage
3. Body paragraph two–say why and how the evidence from the other side isn’t as good, using details from the OTHER passage.
4. Conclusion–re-state your side, show that it is proved and say more about it.
COMPARE/CONTRAST: Tell how these creatures are different?
1. Intro–re-state the prompt
2. Body paragraph one–describe similarities using details from BOTH passages.
3. Body paragraph two–describe details using details from BOTH passages.
4. Conclusion–say more or say if they are overall more alike or more different.
I don’t know about you but I have a headache already…
My Kid and all of her classmates and all the other kids in public school in New York have FOUR DAYS of ELA (English Language Assessment) standardized tests this week.
I guess this is good for them, if they’re planning to go to law school…