This informational narrative in the form of a play is about a group of fourth grade students who volunteer to work with rangers on Padre Island in search of sea turtles. They are looking for the five endangered species of sea turtles that nest there, and when they discover one sea turtle, a Kemp’s ridley, coming onto shore, they carefully observe the turtle (which they name ‘Emerald’) and mark her tracks onto shore and around where she makes her nest. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt StoryTown, 2008)

This lesson was created as part of the Basal Alignment Project, during which teachers created CCSS-aligned lessons for existing literary and information texts in basal readers. All page numbers and unit/week designations found in this lesson relate to the edition of the basal reader named above. If you are using a trade book or different edition of this title, the page/unit/week references in this lesson will not match. Consult the content referenced in the body of the lesson to determine appropriate page numbers for your text.