The Space Rock

Characters’ motivation, vocabulary, identifying a problem, author’s craft, character, figurative language, inference, theme, synthesizing, narrative writing 

Science: astronomy

“The Space Rock” is about a family that must decide what to do when a meteorite lands on their farm. It explores themes of family and community, as well as generosity versus greed. “Treasures From Outer Space” is an informational text pairing that explains why meteorites are highly valued.

The story is told in the first person and is chronological. The informational text is expository.

For the fiction, the language is mainly conversational. The dialogue is casual and frequently colloquial. The story ends with a ten-line poem. Potentially challenging domain-specific terms are defined within the informational text.

Familiarity with meteorites will be helpful but not necessary for comprehension.

• Ask a volunteer to read aloud the Up Close box on page 10.
• Preview the questions in the margins. Show students the blank “write your own question” bubble on page 12.
• Point out the informational text “Treasures From Outer Space,” on page 15. Ask students how they think it will relate to the story.
• The vocabulary in the story is conversational, but characters’ speech includes some regional pronunciations like sleepin’ and git. Students can explore this in our author’s craft activity. 

• Read the story aloud as a class, or play our audio version as students follow along in their magazines.

• Have small groups read the story again, pausing to discuss the close-reading questions in the margins. They can then respond on their own paper. Answers follow.
• Ask students to write their own questions in the blank bubble on page 12, using the other questions as a model. They should underline the relevant line(s) in the story and draw an arrow connecting their question to them. Students can exchange their questions with a partner or share and discuss them as a group.
• Read the informational text as a class.
• Discuss the critical-thinking questions. 

Answers to Close-Reading Questions

• Context Clues (p. 11) Because so many people have left Rock Creek after trying
  and failing to make a living there, you can guess that a ghost town is one with few or no people left living in it.
• Identifying a Problem (p. 11) “Sorta blue” means a bit sad. Karl feels this way because the family is having money problems; he’s stuck at home during the Thanksgiving holiday; and no one in the family is available to spend time with him.
• Author’s Craft (p. 12) The author helps you hear what happens by choosing words like boom and thunk-thunk-thunk to mimic the sounds made by the meteorite falling through the sky and landing near Karl. He also adds vivid comparisons, such as “like a thundercloud moving a million miles an hour” and “like the Earth and everything on it was holdin’ its breath,” so you can imagine the loud noise of the falling space rock and the silence that follows.
• Character (p. 12) These details tell you that Brother knows a lot about science and feels very confident about his knowledge.
• Character (p. 13) Mama and Daddy are kind and caring people. You know this because they welcome and sometimes feed the visitors who come to see the meteorite, always without complaining, even when it’s inconvenient for them.
• Figurative Language (p. 13) Karl calls the meteorites “little stars” because they have fallen from the sky. During a meteor shower, they look like falling stars.
• Character’s Motivation (p. 13) Daddy suggests moving the meteorite into Rock Creek to solve two problems: The town will benefit from having visitors coming to see the space rock, and the family will no longer have their lives disrupted by the visitors.
• Inference (p. 14) Karl and his family can afford a telescope and other things because they have the money earned from selling small meteorites found on their property.
• Inference (p. 14) Karl, Brother, Sister, and Mama are probably thinking about the important decision they must make—whether they want to keep the large sum of money for themselves or help the rest of the town of Rock Creek earn money it needs.
• Theme (p. 14) The lines from Karl’s poem mean the same as when Daddy says, “I believe that getting what you need out of something is better than getting all that you can out of something.” 

Critical-Thinking Questions

• How does reading “Treasures From Outer Space” help you understand why someone would drive 800 miles to see the meteorite on Karl’s family’s farm? (synthesizing)
  “Treasures From Outer Space” explains that meteorites are relatively rare and valuable. Being able to see or touch something from outer space is a special experience, and people will travel far to have that experience.
• Why do you think Karl’s dad decided to have the family vote on keeping or selling the rock rather than deciding that by himself? (character’s motivation)
  Karl’s dad saw the rock as belonging to the whole family, so it wasn’t his decision alone. By bringing the family together to decide, he got them to consider the lesson they could learn from the choice: that sharing their good fortune is preferable to keeping it all for themselves. 

• Distribute our characters’ motivation activity. It will help students prepare to respond to the writing prompt on page 14.