This lesson includes scaffolded analytical writing tasks that provide examples for teaching Common Core writing.

This story is about a dinosaur find in New Mexico and after many years of information, the paleontologist attempts to persuade the reader about what happened to kill the dinosaur.  In order to do so the author gives many ideas and theories but by evaluating evidence, narrows it down to one. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Medallion, 2010)

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.