Review just once more: We know that related
events in a story make up a plot. Often events are related
through cause and effect; one event or situation causes another.
The result is the effect.
Example: A hiker slips on a rock (cause)
which tumbles off the path (effect). Picking up speed
as it rolls, soon many rocks are dislodged (cause)
and a small landslide rumbles toward a creek (effect).
Landing on a piling of logs (cause), a beaver dam
is broken (effect), water rushes down the creek toward
a campsite (effect).
As you read, actively ask WHY a certain
event happened, or what caused a character to act in a certain
way. Questioning leads you to discovering the connection between
events and finding the cause-effect relationship.
Instruction:
Have you imagined what it would be like to live
in the past? Ray Bradbury, a science fiction writer,
figures out a heavy consequence of disturbing
the past. In this passage from "A Sound
of Thunder," a time machine has landed
sixty million years in the past. Eckels is just
about to go on a dinosaur hunt. The guide, Travis,
warns against the dangers of stepping off the
Path in the dinosaurs' wilderness.
This example covers the concept of cause-effect.
Read the question carefully before reading the
passage to set up your brain to make a connection.
Which sentence best describes the immediate consequence
of stepping off the Path?
Think:
Travis' warning in "A Sound
of Thunder" is that any change in the past
could affect the future. He offers a long list of cause
and effect impacts of stepping off the Path. Read the
question carefully as you work through the answers.
Key words are very important in this
question. What are the key words in the question? Type
your answer here:
Find the passage to prove your answer choice in the
text.
Which choices can you eliminate right
away, and which answers will you still consider? Remember
the "YES, NO, MAYBE" tool.
Multiple Choice Answers:
Yes
No
Maybe
Answers
A.
The government doesn't like us here. We have
to pay big graft to keep our franchise.
B.
Queen Elizabeth might never be born, Washington might
not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United
States at all.
C.
Destroy this one man and you destroy a race, a people,
an entire history of life.
D.
Without realizing, we might kill an important animal,
a small bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying
an important link in a growing species.
