Selection: K-11

K-11

Grade level: 11

Word count: 2375 words

Author: Diane Lang

Synopsis: Acceptance and compassion go a long way in helping people with Tourette Syndrome.

Excerpt: "This year I had the awesome opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C., and undergo training as a TS Youth Ambassador. I thought I was shy, but the training motivated me to voice my cause. Currently, I speak to students throughout the state spreading the word about Tourette Syndrome and urging its acceptance as a medical condition. I encourage you to someday become Youth Ambassadors, educating others and inspiring open-mindedness in your communities.

Question: What does this selection tell you about the Tourette Syndrome Youth Ambassador Program?

1. Ambassadors encourage patience and understanding when interacting with people who have TS.
2. Ambassadors develop outgoing personalities, even when they had been shy.
3. Ambassadors spread information about research studies that are trying to develop a cure for TS.
4. Ambassadors work at camps and other institutions to help people with TS understand their condition.

Selection: K-8

K-8

Grade level: 11

Word count: 2348 words

Author: Kate Scoville

Synopsis: Though it is clear that food affects your body's health, have you ever considered that it may also affect your mood?

Excerpt: The implications of this study are very important. Besides being essential for brain and body health, eating fat is also important for promoting feelings of happiness. Doctors now believe the connection between eating fats and being happy may account for the reason why many people on low-fat diets experience depression.

Question: Why are the implications of the Belgian study important?

1. The scientists found that fat is vital for a healthy brain and body as well as for a cheerful temperament.
2. The scientists discovered that eating fatty junk foods can lead to heart problems and other ailments.
3. Researchers realized that most people consume too much fat in their daily meals.
4. Researchers determined that people on low-fat diets tend to be happier and healthier.

Selection: K-9

K-9

Grade level: 11

Word count: 2324 words

Author: Guinevere Tobias

Synopsis: Supporters of Gustave Whitehead are challenging the Wright brothers' place in aviation history.

Excerpt: For nearly 100 years, a small group of aviation enthusiasts have asserted that a now-obscure German immigrant named Gustave Whitehead piloted the first heavier-than-air craft in Fairfield, Connecticut, on August 14, 1901, more than two years before the Wright brothers' venture.

The story of Gustave Whitehead and his airplane began in Germany, where he was born in 1874. Orphaned at the age of 13, he lived with relatives until becoming an apprentice to a machinist who taught him to construct engines.

In 1893, he settled in the United States, shortly translating his surname to the more English-sounding "Whitehead." His first jobs involved constructing gliders, a type of heavier-than-air plane powered only by air currents and gravity.

With its wings folded up, Number 21 could be driven like a car over regular roads; so Whitehead drove it from Bridgeport to the nearby town of Fairfield. There, he flew the plane twice, first for half a mile and then for a mile and a half, achieving of height of 50 feet.

Question: Given the claims made by Whitehead's advocates, place the following events in his life in order, starting with the earliest.

1. Whitehead learns to construct engines from a machinist.
2. Whitehead settles in America and takes a job constructing gliders.
3. Whitehead flies a heavier-than-air craft in Fairfield, Connecticut.
4. The Wright brothers fly a heavier-than-air plane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Selection: K-32

K-32

Grade level: 11

Word count: 2322 words

Author: Henry David Thoreau

Synopsis: Thoreau lived in solitude, but he was not alone. The natural world provided companionship, entertainment, and life lessons.

Excerpt: When I was building, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would come out regularly at lunchtime and pick up the crumbs at my feet.

A phoebe bird soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in a pine which grew against the house. The young suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood.

On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out.

In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had dispatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it.

Once I was surprised to see a cat walking along the stony shore of the pond, for they rarely wander so far from home. Nevertheless the most domestic cat, which has sling on a rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native there than the regular inhabitants.

Question: The animals described by Thoreau share a common trait. What is it?

1. They are exhibiting survival instincts.
2. They are threatened by Thoreau.
3. They succumb to natural disaster or threat.
4. They are overwhelmed by nature.