Pearson Scott ForesmanISBN-13: ISBN-10:
978-0-328-52540-9 0-328-52540-5
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Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA,™ Lexile,® and Reading Recovery™ are provided in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.
Scott Foresman Reading Street 5.6.1S tt F R di St t 5 6 1
Genre Comprehension
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Note: The total word count includes words in the running text and headings only. Numerals and words in chapter titles, captions, labels, diagrams, charts, graphs, sidebars, and extra features are not included.
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ISBN 13: 978-0-328-52540-9 ISBN 10: 0-328-52540-5
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Mike Matthews was feeling sleepy, but he forced himself to stay awake. He’d been researching his essay all weekend long. Now it was eleven o’clock on Sunday night. He was giving his work a final proofread, checking for typos and misspelled words.
Mike’s assignment was to write an essay that would fit the theme “Great Moments in Science.” His teacher, Mr. Samms, was going to enter the essays in a student essay contest sponsored by the local newspaper. The owner of the newspaper would give the winner a cash prize. If anyone from his class won, Mr. Samms promised to reward that student with extra credit for the grading period.
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Mike really wanted to win. He had never been a great writer. This time, though, he had a good feeling about his essay. For the first time, he had written something he was really excited about. He knew his mother would be very happy to see a really good grade if he got the extra credit. Most importantly, Mike wanted to prove that if he put his mind to it, he could write something great.
Mike was incredibly excited about his research topic. In school they were studying disease control. He’d learned about medicines called antibiotics that were of vital importance in killing the kinds of bacteria that made people sick. Mr. Samms told the class that the first antibiotic was named penicillin. It was named that because it was made from a mold called Penicillium notatum.
Mike became intrigued. When Mike thought of mold, he pictured the fuzzy green stuff that grew on bread when it got too old. He remembered opening a container of old leftovers that had been in the refrigerator for more than a week. The food was covered in the green growth. His mom made him throw out the moldy food because it would make him sick if he ate it – not that he wanted to anyway! He wanted to learn more about this interesting phenomenon – how could something that made you sick also help cure some sicknesses? He read a few books and became increasingly fascinated by what he found out.
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Mike learned that penicillin had been discovered in 1929 by a Scottish research scientist and doctor named Alexander Fleming. One Friday, Dr. Fleming’s sink was piled high with dishes. Some of the dishes contained old samples of bacteria that Dr. Fleming had been experimenting with. Dr. Fleming left for the weekend, leaving the dishes in the sink and the window near the sink open. When he returned, he noticed a bluish-gray mold on one of his plates. The mold had killed all the bacteria it touched.
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Brandon’s bedroom was in the attic. Mike climbed to his brother’s messy roost, where Brandon was sitting at his desk reading.
“Mom says you’re leaving tomorrow. See you at your next college break,” Mike said, hugging Brandon.
“See ya, dude. Be good. E-mail me once in a while,” Brandon replied, as he bear-hugged Mike back.
“Okay,” Mike sleepily agreed as he left the room. He washed up quickly, and when he jumped into bed, he fell asleep almost instantly.
In the morning, Mike awoke to the sound of his mother calling to him from the foot of the stairs. “Miiiike!! Get up!! You’re going to miss the bus!”
Mike’s alarm was still beeping noisily. “Get up, sleepyhead!!” his mom called. Mike sat straight up in bed. He had overslept!
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In an instant, Mike was up and dressed. His mother held out his backpack for him as he bounded down the stairs. “Hurry!” she urged.
Mike glanced quickly at the kitchen table. His paper wasn’t there, but he assumed that his mother put it in his backpack for him. “Thanks, Mom,” Mike said, giving her a quick kiss as he rushed towards the door. He had to run a long block to get to the bus stop, and he hoped he’d make it in time. Maybe he’d be lucky, and the bus would be late today.
Running the entire way there, Mike arrived at the bus stop just as the bus pulled in. “Whew! Just made it! That was lucky,” he said to himself as he took his seat on the bus.
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Mike thought about how the spore of penicillin had drifted out the window of the lab below Alexander Fleming’s lab and floated up. It had been blown into Dr. Fleming’s window where it landed in the sink enabling Dr. Fleming to make his fortuitous discovery.
Mike wondered if his essay had floated out the window on a breeze? It was a crazy idea but Mike just couldn’t imagine where the essay had gone.
After lunch, Mike went back to his class feeling very disappointed. “It was the best thing I’ve ever written,” he told Mr. Samms. “I worked really hard on it.”
“That’s too bad, Mike. You’ll have to be more careful with your work next time,” Mr. Samms said.
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Mike nodded but he didn’t think Mr. Samms was being fair. He had been careful with his work, but it had just disappeared.
At the end of the school day, Mr. Samms packed up the class’s essays in a big envelope. As he stuffed the envelope into his briefcase, he said, “I’m going to the newspaper office right after school. Sometimes there is traffic at this time of day, and I want to be sure to get downtown in time for the four o’clock deadline. See you all tomorrow. There is no homework for tonight!”
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As he watched Mr. Samms leave, Mike thought that maybe, if he looked again, maybe he would find the essay. Then he could ride his bicycle to the newspaper office before the four o’clock deadline.
When Mike got home, he searched all around the kitchen. He pulled open drawers and cabinets, even looking in the refrigerator and oven. He even checked inside the garbage. He turned to see Duke the Dog watching him. “Did you eat it?” Mike asked him, but Duke just stared curiously back at Mike.
Looking around, Mike noticed a window that was open just a crack. If the paper had been blown out the window, it could be anywhere. The chance was tiny, but just the same, he went out and checked in the bushes and on the lawn. No luck!
The next day, Mr. Samms came in looking very unhappy. “Class, I have some bad news,” he began. “On the way to the newspaper yesterday I had car trouble. My car had to be towed. By the time I could get a ride to the newspaper office, I had missed the deadline for entering the contest. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
The class grumbled and complained. They were so disappointed that Mr. Samms had missed the deadline. They understood that he hadn’t meant to arrive too late to make the deadline, but they couldn’t help but be upset.
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Two weeks later, Mr. Samms came into class wearing a puzzled expression on his face. He handed Mike a large manila envelope with the name Michael Matthews printed neatly on it. “This is yours,” he said, “though I don’t understand how you did it.”
Mike took the envelope from him. “What is this? Did what?” he asked.
“Your essay won first place in the ‘Great Moments in Science’ essay contest,” Mr. Samms told Mike. “Don’t ask me how it happened. It’s pretty bizarre.”
Mike looked inside the envelope. In it were a check and a certificate congratulating him on his win. The newspaper was going to print his essay in their next issue.
Mike scratched his head, bewildered. Had his paper really floated out his window and all the way to the newspaper office?
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Two days later, Mike’s essay about Alexander Fleming’s lucky discovery appeared in the paper. There was a great deal of excitement at Mike’s school. The principal announced the news over the loudspeaker. A copy of Mike’s winning essay was displayed next to the main office of the school.
Mike’s family was very excited. His mother called all their relatives to tell them the wonderful news. She gave Mike a big hug and told him how proud she was of him.
“I feel so good about this, Mom,” Mike told her. “I really wanted to prove that if I put my mind to it, I could write something that was excellent.”
That night Mike’s brother Brandon called from college to congratulate Mike. Brandon said he had seen the essay in the newspaper. “It was a good thing that essay was blowing around in the backseat of my car or I would never have even noticed it,” he said.
“What?” Mike asked. “What are you talking about?”
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“Didn’t I tell you?” Brandon asked. “Maybe I forgot. My books and things were on a kitchen chair, and your essay must have fallen on top of them. When I left in the morning, I just scooped everything up without looking.”
“So you had my essay!” Mike cried. “That’s right. By the time I noticed it in the car, it was
easier to just drop it off at the newspaper than come all the way home,” Brandon explained.
“How did you know to take it there?” Mike asked. “The entry form was clipped to it. Luckily it had the
address of the newspaper right on it.” So the mystery was finally solved! Mike laughed just
thinking about it. If Brandon hadn’t accidentally taken his essay, Mike would never have won. “Thanks, Brandon! I guess Alexander Fleming isn’t the only one who had a happy accident!” Mike told his brother.
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Penicillin is one of the most powerful medicines in the world. It kills scarlet fever, diphtheria, and pneumonia, among many other deadly diseases caused by harmful bacteria. And yet it was discovered almost by luck in 1929.
Of course, not every person would have known what this magic-seeming ring of mold meant to humankind. Dr. Fleming modestly said, “My only merit is that I did not neglect the observation and pursued it as a bacteriologist.” It would take a team of other scientists to fully develop penicillin and make it available to the public. In 1945, Dr. Fleming was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine along with two of those scientists, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain.
Dr. Fleming was knighted by the queen of England for his discovery. When he died in 1955, he was buried as a national hero.
Reader Response 1. Based on what you read about Dr. Fleming, what
do you think might be some good qualities for all scientists to have?
2. What is an important lesson you learned from the story? What do you think was the most important lesson Mike learned from his experience? Why are these important lessons to learn? Write your answers in a chart like the one below.
Lesson Learned Why Is It Important?
3. How do you think the word breathtaking came into use?
4. What unexpected event has happened to you? Was it something that turned out for better or for worse? Explain your answer.
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