In this story, Carlos and Gloria have been friends since they were young, and Carlos begins to develop feelings for Gloria, so he decides to impress her by catching the skunk that lives in their garden. Carlos finds out the hard way that picking up a skunk by its tail is not the best way to catch it. (McGraw-Hill Treasures, 2009)

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.