Skill: Infer and Support the Main

Plants and Food 6th Grade Nonfiction

Source: Public Domain, adapted by Center for Urban Education, may be used with citation.

The more you know about plants and foods, the healthier you will be. Some foods can provide you
with essential vitamins to keep you healthy, but some foods can make you sick. It is very important to know
how to distinguish between the two. You also need to learn how to keep foods safe and prevent them from
spoiling. There’s so much to learn.
There is a lot to learn about plants people eat, such as how to grow them and how to prepare them for
eating. Scientists can learn how to keep them safe to eat. Sometimes people who don’t know something can
make a mistake. For example, some mushrooms are poisonous, and people need to know which those are so
they don’t eat them. People need to know about plants in order to stay healthy.
If you don’t know about foods and plants, you can make a big mistake. You need to know which
plants are safe to eat. At one time, people feared the tomato, because they believed it to be poisonous. They
thought it was dangerous because it grows on a vine that looks like a poisonous plant called nightshade.
Therefore, in the early 1800s, people in the United States were afraid to eat it. It took several years before
the tomato was accepted as a food in the United States. Today, it is a big part of the American diet. It's
found in things like soup and ketchup.
Any food can become a source of sickness if it's not stored safely. Tomatoes can be dangerous if
they rot, and so can most other foods if they are not stored properly. One way to store food safely is to dry it.
Before people invented cans, they used to dry food to store it for long periods of time. For example, they
would dry tomatoes in the sun. Today, people still eat sun-dried tomatoes.
Some plants actually help keep people safe, for example, cloves. No one really knows how people
figured that out, but it was most likely from someone trying to use cloves to flavor their food. Cloves have a
nice, spicy taste.
The clove plant was first found on islands sometimes called the Spice Islands. A tree grows there;
it's a tree that makes cloves. These cloves actually are buds from that tree. The people on the islands picked
the buds; the buds were pink when people picked them, and then they dried and turned dark. When they
were dried, people put them with food, and they made the food taste great. Probably, the people found that
they also helped to preserve foods. Cloves help meat and other foods keep from spoiling.
Today we know why cloves help food stay safe. Scientists have studied cloves and have discovered
that cloves contain a kind of oil in them called eugenol. That oil is an antiseptic. Antiseptic is a word with
two important parts. The prefix anti means against, and the root sepsis means poisoning. In other words,
eugenol helps prevent poisoning. It’s a good thing we have scientists to help us stay safe.
Scientists are people who have careers learning about plants and food. They study the history of
plants, and they observe them in order to learn how to make them grow better. They study how to keep them
safe, which in turn helps people live healthier lives.
 Questions developed by Center for Urban Education for use by Chicago Public Schools 2008-
1. What is the main idea of the
Directions:
second Choose the best answer for each
paragraph?

a. People need to know about plants and

food.

b. Mushrooms are poisonous.

c. People eat plants.

d. People cook plants.

2. What is the main idea of the
third paragraph?

a. People thought tomatoes were poison.

b. Some people do not eat tomatoes.

c. Tomatoes grow on vines.

d. You need to know what foods to eat.

3. What is the main idea of the 4. What is another title for the whole passage?
whole passage?
a. The Many Plants We Eat
a. You should study plants.
b. Learning about Tomatoes
b. Knowing about plants helps people.
c. Staying Healthy with Plants
c. There are many plants you can eat.
d. How Scientists Work
d. Scientists study plants.

5. Write your own answer to this question.

How do you figure out the main idea of a passage?

A Great Digger – North American Fable 6th Grade Fiction

Source: Public Domain, adapted by Center for Urban Education, may be used with citation.

This is an old American fable. It’s not certain who first told it, but it teaches a lesson of
importance.
Badger always had a good day—he never complained and always turned a problem into an
opportunity. He liked living on the high, dry plains where he had many ground squirrels and prairie
dogs as his neighbors. He probably enjoyed their company much more than they did his. If anyone
had asked them, they would have said that they wished Badger were somewhere else. He was always
disturbing their tranquil community with his daily digging.
Badger wanted to be helpful, and he was—he enabled his neighbors to construct safe homes.
 Skill: Infer and Support the Main
They lived in burrows, which are homes under the ground, and creating them is a challenge. Usually
the soil is hard and difficult to move, especially below the topsoil. They made their tunnels where he
had dug, they were able to dig easily because he had made the soil soft.
Badger was lonely because the other animals never stopped to be with him. They would run
and stay inside their burrows shouting, “Watch out, boring Badger is coming.” Badger would try to
follow them into their homes for companionship, but the other animals just ignored him.
So Badger just dug and dug all day every day. ”I’m designed for digging,” he said to himself. He
had a powerful body: short, stout legs, and big feet, which had long, strong claws. When he started to
dig, he could make the dirt fly.
Badger enjoyed digging so much that he dug countless holes of his own, just for the fun it gave
him and how it helped others. More than one fox and coyote had made his home in a hole dug by
Badger. They never did take the trouble to thank him though. Instead, they often laughed about his
odd way of having fun and commented that Badger must be a stupid fellow.
If they really thought that, they were wrong as well as ungrateful. He was slow and clumsy at
everything except digging. He was too heavy and squat to be quick on his feet in order to chase and
catch his faster neighbors. That was not because he was not smart. His wits were sharp, he knew he
was designed to dig.
Usually, nobody saw Badger until night. He rarely left his den in the daytime, except to sun
himself. Then not many noticed him because of camouflage. He did not hide when anyone surprised
him while taking a sunbath, but he had a trick of lying flat in the grass without moving, and his striped
body blended with the vegetation. So, it took a sharp eye to spy him when he lay low in that fashion.
Sleeping, with his long fur on end, he looked too comfortable to disturb. At least, that was what
the ground squirrels thought. And if one of those busy little fellows ever paused to stare at Badger
when he was napping in the sunshine, Badger just had to turn his head toward the onlooker. That was
sure to make him run away.
One day there was a great wind, a tornado with tremendous force. It blew all the trees away
and even removed bushes and grass. The animals all hid in their burrows. When it was calm again,
they came out. They said to themselves, it’s a good thing we have our holes to keep us safe. Then they
said, “What a difference it makes to have holes for homes. We should thank Badger for doing all that
digging.”
He was glad the animals thanked him, they now realized that his help to build their homes had
safeguarded them. He would keep digging so that every day was a good one and everyone would have
a safe home.
Questions developed by Center for Urban Education for use by Chicago Public Schools 2008-
6. What is the main idea of the
second paragraph?
Directions: Choose the best answer for each

a. Badger liked to dig.

b. The other animals did not like Badger.

c. Many animals lived in Badger’s home.

d. Badger lived on a hill.

7. What is the main idea of the third
paragraph?

a. Badger wanted friends.

b. The other animals did not like Badger.

c. Badger had helped the other animals.

d. The animals all lived in burrows.

8. What is the main idea of the 9. What is another good title for the passage?
whole passage?
a. Living Underground
a. Badger digs for fun.
b. Digging is Fun
b. The other animals don’t like Badger.
c. Holes that Help
c. Badger helps the other animals.
d. Making Friends
d. Many animals live underground.

10. Write your own answer to this question.

What is the main idea of the last paragraph?

TEACHER NOTES: Develop Students’ Skills: Exercise Thinking

These questions have not been validated, so decisions about student’s achievement should not be made
based on their responses. They are intended to exercise skills. Recommended activities include: students
work in pairs to choose the best response; give students the questions without the responses so they
generate their own answers; students make up additional questions; students make up questions like
these for another passage.

Answers: You can remove this answer key and then give it to students and ask them
Skill:
to Infer
figure andbasis
out the Support
for thethe Mainresponse.
correct

Item 6 7 8 9
Answer a c c c

Question 10 is open-ended. Here is a suggested response.

10. Answers should include that Bennie had helped all the animals.