Grade 4-6 CCSS Expository Reading Passages

CCSS ELA Grade 4-8 Expository Reading Passages with Reading Comprehension Questions

Free Printable Grade 4-8 Expository CCSS ELA Reading Passages PDF Files

Teacher Made Paired Expository Reading Passages 

Child Slavery and Your Chocolate Bar
Child Labor and Your Jeans, Electronics, and Games
A Timeline of Female Labor and Education in the US

Reading Boot Camp 2.0 Expository Mentor Text  Grades 4-8

CCSSR ELA Reading Writing: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Story Source: Sean Taylor and http://reading-sage.blogspot.com

The Sonoran Desert Flora and Fauna

The Sonoran Desert lies in the southwest corner of the United States of America, largely in the two states of Arizona and California, and stretches into the northern parts of Mexico across the border. It is the hottest desert in all of North America but is also the desert with the widest species diversity of all deserts in the continent. Thus, the wide diversity of flora, fauna, and landscapes is something that awaits all visitors to this desert.

The Sonoran Desert is home to more than 60 different species of mammals, which range from the Sky islands (Mountains) to the lowland arid desert environments. The sky islands are isolated forested mountains surrounded by radically different desert habitats and populations of flora and fauna. The Sky island in the Sonoran desert create natural phenomena only to be found in sky islands transition zones. The various biomes created in the transition zones account for the most diverse desert region in the world. Apart from the mammals, this desert also comprises more than 350 different species of birds, as well as, over twenty types of amphibians. Moreover, this desert has close to 100 types of snakes, as well as, 30 types of native fish species. In addition to that, there are well over 2,000 different species of plants (flora), which provides a wide range of habitats to the bird and animal residents of the Sonoran desert.

The wondrous diversity of plant life present in the Sonoran Desert is nothing compared to the incredible variability in animal lifeforms. Thus, this desert is home to both columnar cacti and conifers, which fall under two extremes in terms of fauna of any given place. Some of the animals that abound in this desert include the names such as Bobcat, Coyote, Gray Fox, Harris Antelope, Mule Deer, Jackrabbit, and much more. Other animals present, including the reptiles, and arthropods are Rattlesnake, Diamondback, Collared Lizard, Desert Tortoise, Tarantula, and Bark Scorpion among others. Some of the popular bird species are Anna’s Hummingbird, Elf Owl, Gila Woodpecker, and Harris Hawk among others. Some of the common plant species are Desert marigold, Brittlebush, Saguaro Cactus, and Prickly Pear among others. 

Neil Aden Armstrong 1969: First Human on the Moon

CCSS.ELA-Literacy. RL.6.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSSR1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. Story Source: Sean Taylor and http://reading-sage.blogspot.com

Neil Aden Armstrong was an American astronaut who in 1969 became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. This incredible feat has ensured a permanent place for this person in the collective consciousness of the human race for all eternity. He also made his now-famous remark of “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’ upon walking on the lunar surface for the first time.

Neil Armstrong was boron on August 5, 1930, near Wapakoneta in Ohio, and was the eldest of the three children born to the couple Stephen and Viola Engel Armstrong. He felt a deep interest in planes and the science of flying from an early age, and began taking flying lessons at the age of fourteen, which got him a pilot’s license at sixteen. He also performed various experiments with his self-made model planes, and developed profound interest in astronomy thanks to a neighbor who owned a powerful telescope.

Armstrong attended Indiana’s Purdue University with a U.S. Navy scholarship in 1947, and called to active duty after a couple of years. He served with distinction during the Korean War when he flew around seventy-eighty combat missions, only to return to Purdue to complete his degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955. He got married to Janet Shearon in 1956.

Armstrong became a skilled test pilot at NACA High Speed Flight Station, and flew a number of future jet aircrafts. His flying prowess led to him becoming America’s first nonmilitary astronaut, and became involved with the Gemini space missions. In 1969, Armstrong was selected as the commander for the Apollo 11 mission, and left for the moon with Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins. On July 20, 1969, he along with Aldrin became the first two humans to walk on the lunar surface, a feat celebrated by humans to this date.

Once Armstrong and Aldrin were ready to go outside, Eagle was depressurized, the hatch was opened and Armstrong made his way down the ladder first. At the bottom of the ladder, Armstrong said "I'm going to step off the LEM now" (referring to the Apollo Lunar Module). He then turned and set his left boot on the surface at 2:56 UTC July 21, 1969, then spoke the famous words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

AHistory of the Hanseatic League

Reading Boot Camp 2.0 Expository Mentor Text Grade 4-8

CCSSR ELA Reading Writing: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. Story Source: Sean Taylor and http://reading-sage.blogspot.com

The Hanseatic League, or simply the Hansa, was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe. Protecting economic interests and diplomatic privileges in the capital citoes and countries along the trade routes was the primary reason for its creation. The league was founded in the 13^th century, and continued to play a dominant role in the northern Europe’s trade for over 300 years. Even though the league never enjoyed monopoly in the region, it nevertheless grew to include more than 170 cities in the regions, and formed a sort of political cohesion, despite the limits of medieval mode of communication. The league become the leading supplier of luxury goods, as well as, food and raw materials from the trading centers of northern Europe to the western and central parts of the continent, and in return the merchants received commercial finished products such as metal goods, cloth, weapons, and spices that had a great premium and north and east.

The history of the Hanseatic League goes as far back as the middle of the 12^th century when the merchants from Lower Germany decided to form an alliance with the common goal of establishing flourishing trade and commercial environment by securing the safety of the goods and crew during transportation, particularly at high seas. The Hanseatic League covered an impressive area in the northern parts of Europe, which stretched from Sweden’s Visby all the way to the axis formed by Cologne, Erfurt, Breslau, and Krakow, and from Dutch Lake of Zuidersee to Baltic Estonia.

The Hanseatic League, at the height of its power, was able to extend its economic influence to all corners of Europe, from Portugal to Russia, and from England to Italy. It formed trading sites at strategic places such as Bergen in Norway, Bruges, in Flanders, Novgorod in Russia, and London in England. 

End of the Hansa:  The Swedish Empire had taken control of much of the Baltic. Denmark had regained control over its own trade, the Kontor in Novgorod had closed, and the Kontor in Bruges had become effectively moribund. At the start of the 16th century, the League found itself in a weaker position than it had known for many years. The individual cities which made up the League had also started to put self-interest before their common Hanseatic interests. However, during the later years, rising trade competition from new national and international trading entities and new trade alliances left it with practically no place to trade or sell goods, and it held its last council meeting or Hanseatic Diet in 1669 in Lübeck. Finally, the political authority of the German princes had started to grow—and so to constrain the independence of action which the merchants and Hanseatic towns had enjoyed.

Crocodile& Alligator Divergences

CCSSR ELA Reading Writing: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. Includes questions you can ask about any story. Describe the logical connection between particular sentences and paragraphs in a text (e.g., comparison, cause/effect, first/second/third in a sequence. Story Source: Sean Taylor and http://reading-sage.blogspot.com/

An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. The two living species are the American alligator and the Chinese alligator.

1. Scientific name: Alligator
2. Lifespan: 30 – 50 y (American alligator, Adult)
3. Clutch size: 20 – 50 (American alligator, Adult, Female)
4. Lower classifications: American alligator, Alligator prenasalis, Chinese alligator
5. Length: 4.9 ft. (Chinese alligator, Adult), 11 – 15 ft. (American alligator, Adult, Male)
6. Mass: 500 lbs (American alligator, Adult, Male), 79 lbs (Chinese alligator, Adult)

Crocodiles or true crocodiles are large aquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia.

1, Scientific name: Crocodylinae
2. Lifespan: 70 – 100 y (Nile crocodile), 70 y (Saltwater crocodile, Adult)
3. Speed: 15 – 18 mph (Saltwater crocodile, In The Water, In Short Bursts)
4. Length: 14 – 17 ft. (Saltwater crocodile, Adult, Male)
5. Mass: 900 lbs (Nile crocodile, Adult)
6. Clutch size: 50 (Nile crocodile), 40 – 60 (Saltwater crocodile), 30 – 70 (American crocodile)

Crocodiles and alligators may seem a similar pot to the untrained eyes, but it is nothing but fact that they share more than subtle differences that make it exceedingly easy to tell one apart from another. Crocodile belong to the family Crocodylidae while the alligators belong to the family Alligatoridae, both falling under the subgroup Eusuchia that appeared on earth during the late Cretaceous more than 100 million year ago. Thus, these two reptiles belong to two different families, which makes the comparison between them much like that between a lion and a leopard.

An extremely simple and effective way to tell an alligator from a crocodile is by studying the shape and side of their snouts. Alligators have a wider shaped jaw, which is usually a bit U-shaped, and a round snout that mimics a shovel. On the other hand, crocodiles have longer and much more pointed snouts in the shape of letter ‘V’. The unique shape of the snouts determine the primary prey of these two animals, with the alligators specializing primarily upon hard shelled invertebrates, and turtles, while the crocodile has a much more generalized diet.

Moreover, the upper jaw of the alligators is wider than their lower jaws, which makes their lower set of teeth completely hidden from view once they close their mouth. On the other hand, the upper and lower jaws in crocodiles are approximately of the same width which means that the teeth from the upper jaw interlocks with those from the lower jaw when they shut their mouth.

Finally, several other physiological differences are also useful in telling a crocodile apart from an alligator such as the presence of active lingual salt glands in the former, while the alligator has lost the ability to use it. Another telling difference is the presence of integumentary (organ system that protects the body from damage) sense organs throughout the body in crocodiles, but limited to the area around the jaws in alligators.