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GRADE 5Lesson 13WORD COUNT000GENREReaders TheaterLEVELELLxHSKBPJy018835zv*:+:!:+:!ISBN-13:978-0-15-350283-5ISBN-10:0-15-350283-5by Michael Sandlerillustrated by Marni Backer GRADE 5Lesson 13WORD COUNT959GENREExpository Nonfiction LEVELELLHarcourt LeveledReaders Online Database RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL_COV.indd 2-311/2/06 10:45:32 PMby Michael Sandlerillustrated by Marni BackerCopyright by Harcourt,Inc.All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical,including photocopy,recording,or any information storage and retrieval system,without permission in writing from the publisher.Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be addressed to School Permissions and Copyrights,Harcourt,Inc.,6277 Sea Harbor Drive,Orlando,Florida 328876777.Fax:407-345-2418.HARCOURT and the Harcourt Logo are trademarks of Harcourt,Inc.,registered in the United States of America and/or other jurisdictions.Printed in MexicoISBN 10:0-15-350283-5ISBN 13:978-0-15-350283-5Ordering OptionsISBN 10:0-15-349940-0(Grade 5 ELL Collection)ISBN 13:978-0-15-349940-1(Grade 5 ELL Collection)ISBN 10:0-15-357319-8(package of 5)ISBN 13:978-0-15-357319-4(package of 5)If you have received these materials as examination copies free of charge,Harcourt School Publishers retains title to the materials and they may not be resold.Resale of examination copies is strictly prohibited and is illegal.Possession of this publication in print format does not entitle users to convert this publication,or any portion of it,into electronic format.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 126 12 11 10 09 08 07 06RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 110/28/06 12:39:21 AMRXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 29/22/06 12:48:03 PM3A baby burps.The sound is so loud it blows the roof off a house.A woman floats down a river.She is not in a boat.She is not swimming.She is riding on top of a fish.A man grows tall.He grows taller than the tallest trees.Could any of these events happen in real life?No,of course they could not.Are they scenes from a new cartoon?Again,the answer is no.These are all old stories.They come from American tall tales.RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 310/28/06 12:40:04 AMTall tales have been around for hundreds of years.Tall tales are stories about unbelievable events and characters.People told these stories to entertain others before television was invented.Many of these stories started in the 1800s.The United States was changing during this time.People were moving west.They were clearing forests.They were exploring the wilderness.They were building railroads.The tall tales that people told were about these activities.4RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 410/28/06 12:40:51 AM5Most tall tales were alike in several ways.The stories were usually full of humor.They were meant to make people laugh.The stories were told in everyday speech.Fancy language wasnt part of a tall tale.Each tall tale usually had a hero who did a specific job.These heroes got their reputations by doing their jobs better than anyone else.RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 510/28/06 12:41:26 AMMost importantly,tall tales had lots of exaggeration.For example,the characters often werent like normal people.If the characters were bigthey were huge.If they were strongthey could lift up mountains.Lets look at some famous heroes of American tall tales.6RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 610/28/06 12:42:36 AMPaul BunyanFew tales are“taller”than the stories of Paul Bunyan.Paul Bunyan was a lumberjack.A lumberjack is someone who cuts down trees.Lots of trees were being cut down during the early 1800s.Forests were being cleared to make way for farms.Wood was needed to build homes.Today tree cutting is done with machines.In those days,tree cutting was done by hand.Lumberjacks swung heavy axes.Nobody could swing an axe like Paul Bunyan.7RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 710/28/06 12:43:22 AMPaul Bunyan stories were full of exaggeration like all tall tales.Bunyan wasnt normal.He was superhuman in many ways.He was extremely big,even as a child.At a week old,this hero wore his fathers clothes.Baby Paul Bunyan had powerful lungs.Fish would jump out of streams when he started to cry.Paul Bunyan grew even larger as an adult.He used wagon wheels as shirt buttons.He was so big that his footprints made huge holes in the ground.They filled up with rain and turned into lakes.One story was about how Paul Bunyan created the Grand Canyon.He did it by dragging his axe in the ground.8RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 810/28/06 12:44:44 AMMost tales also include Paul Bunyans pet.His pet was a big blue ox named Babe.Babe was nearly as big as Paul Bunyan.It took birds a whole day to fly between the two horns on Babes head.Of course,it took a lot of food to feed a pet of this size.Babe ate 2,000 pounds(907 kg)of grain in a meal.Afterward,Babe was still hungry.9RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 910/28/06 1:13:00 AMSally Ann Thunder Ann WhirlwindOne tall tale features a woman named Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind.She was born in Tennessee.Sally was very strong and intelligent.She was also fearless.She could fight an alligator.She wore a hornets nest as a hat on Sundays.10RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 1011/6/06 8:13:22 AM11A man named Mike Fink wanted to test Sallys courage.Mike didnt think Sally was as fearless as she said she was.One day he dressed up in the skin of an alligator.He hid in some bushes.When Sally walked past,Mike jumped out.He started growling loudly.He showed her his claws.Sally wasnt scared,though.She took out a toothpick that she carried with her all the time.She knocked the alligators head off of Mike Fink.Sally realized that Mike Fink was trying to trick her!She punished him.Mike never tried to scare Sally again!RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 1110/28/06 12:50:48 AMJohn HenryA third famous hero was a railway worker named John Henry.In the 1800s,railroads were a growing part of American life.Track was being laid from New York to California.Railroads had to pass through mountains.Workers built tunnels through them to make way for the track.The work was hard.Workers pounded holes into the rock using sledge-hammers.Sticks of dynamite were placed in the holes.Rock was blown up and hauled away.The process was repeated until the tunnel was completed.12RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 1210/31/06 8:52:58 AMJohn Henry was one of these workers.Like most tall tale characters,he could do his job better than anyone else.He was incredibly strong and determined.No one tunneled faster than he did.Unlike most tall tales,the most famous John Henry story isnt filled with funny events.The story is serious and has a tragic ending.John Henry battled a machine.The machine was a steam drill.It was built to drill holes faster than a man could.John Henry said that he and his sledgehammer were faster than the machine.They had a contest.John Henry won the contest.Afterward,however,John Henry died.Beating the machine had made him so tired that it killed him.13RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 1311/6/06 8:15:04 AMTall Tales TodayTall tales may be old,but people still tell these kinds of stories today.Action movies and comic books are filled with stories that could never happen in real life.The abilities of the heroes are often exaggerated,as in tall tales.As long as people enjoy superheroes,the spirit of tall tales will never die.14RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 1410/28/06 12:54:38 AMTo the TeacherWord Count:959Scaffolded Language DevelopmentUSING THE WORD SO Review with students the following sentences from the selection:The sound is so loud it blows the roof off a house.(page 3)He was so big that his footprints made huge holes in the ground.(page 8)Ask students what these sentences have in common.If necessary,point out that both have the word so.When so is combined with an adjective,as in the above sentences,it shows an extreme degree of some quality.Model reading the sentences with emphasis on the word so.For practice,have students make up endings to complete the following sentence starters:1.Paul Bunyan was so tall _.2.Babe the Ox was so big _.3.Pecos Bill was so wild _.4.John Henry was so strong _.Social StudiesRailway Time Line Help students find out about the history of railways in the United States.When was the first railway across the United States completed?Have students make a time line of important events in railway history in the United States.School-Home Connection Tall Tales at Home:Share this story with a family member.Ask them for tips on how to best tell a story to a group of people.RXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 1510/28/06 12:55:06 AMRXENL08ARD5E13_ELL.indd 169/22/06 1:00:47 PM