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Topic Sheet for Writing Assignment #5 (WA #5): Creature Features

Assigned Topic: Using the following five questions and five sources, you should answer each of the following questions for a child (or children) in either the third or the fifth grade of elementary school.

1. How do bees find nectar? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2013/02/21/bees-can-sense-the-electric-fields-of-flowers/

2. How do Jesus lizards walk on water? http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/age16-19/Properties%20of%20matter/Density/text/Jesus_lizard/index.html

3. How do owls catch prey that they can’t see? https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/How_Owls_Hunt.html

4. How does the glass octopus become almost invisible? http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170622-the-animals-that-are-almost-invisible

5. How do some jellyfish “live forever”? https://thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist/158-biologist/features/1510-everlasting-life-the-immortal-jellyfish

Topic Requirements: A. An answer to one (or more) of questions 1-5 as found above. B. Required situation: Your answer(s) should be written as article (or articles) in a grade school newsletter about the bees, Jesus lizards, owls, octopuses, and jellyfish that the class will see during a field trip to the zoo. This newsletter should try to get the children interested in the information that these “creature features.” C. Your writing style should be appropriate in sentence length and vocabulary for children in either the third or the fifth grade (your choice). You can also write to a one child (perhaps a younger brother or sister) in one of these grades.

D. Paraphrases/quotes: The use of direct quotations from your sources will not be appropriate for your required situation. Therefore, you should use paraphrases (your own words, your own sentence structure) as shown in the following example.

Here’s the original wording of an opinion from the source in question #1: “In the same way that a rubbed balloon makes your hair stand on end, perhaps a charged flower provides a bee with detectable tugs and shoves” (Yong).

A good paraphrase for this opinion for a child would be as follows: The next time you go to a birthday party, grab a balloon. Then rub it with your hand and hold the balloon above your head. Your hair will actually rise up toward the balloon. This is probably how a bee finds food (Yong).

E. Incorrect paraphrasing that is too close to the wording and/or the sentence structure of the original material from your required five sources will result in a zero for WA #5. See policy sheet for more information on plagiarism.