“Pioneer Girl” relates the real-life experiences of the McCance family, Nebraska homesteaders in 1885, combining narrative writing with quotes from Grace McCance's memoir, No Time on My Hands. The McCances endure prairie fires, crushing rainstorms and intense loneliness as they learn that optimism and hard work create endless opportunities for their family. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Reading, 2005)

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.