LESSON 2 TEACHER’S GUIDE
Life in the 1950s
by Lalit Gupta
Fountas-Pinnell Level U
Nonfiction
Selection Summary
Popular sentiment holds that the 1950s were a time of peace and
prosperity. In many ways, they were—especially when compared
with the 1930s and 1940s. However, discrimination and different
expectations for men and women also were part of the 1950s. This
text reviews the events and examines the culture of the 1950s.
Number of Words: 1,576
Characteristics of the Text
Genre
Text Structure
Content
Themes and Ideas
Language and
Literary Features
Sentence Complexity
Vocabulary
Words
Illustrations
Book and Print Features
• Nonfiction
• Third-person narrative with some direct address to the reader
• Organized by topic in 5 chapters
• Underlying structures include description, problem/solution, and compare/contrast.
• The growth of the suburbs and car culture
• New products for the home and their effect on culture
• Discrimination and gender roles in the 1950s
• Most decades have had both positive and negative aspects.
• Life in the 1950s was different for different groups of people in the United States.
• The American dream lifestyle was new.
• Proper names of cultural icons of the period
• Some complex sentences contain embedded, dependent clauses
• Some sentences contain parenthetical material set off by dashes
• Conceptual words, such as economy, require context and may require a dictionary.
• Some compound words: highways, homemaker
• Some multisyllable words: comfortable, miraculous, misrepresented
• Graphs represent complex ideas.
• Photographs with detailed captions
• Fourteen pages of text, with graphics or photographs on every page
• Table of contents, headings, captions, map, call-outs, graphs
© 2006. Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, Heinemann, Portsmouth, N.H.
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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Life in the 1950s
by Lalit Gupta
Build Background
Help students use their knowledge of American twentieth-century cultural history to
visualize the selection. Build interest by asking questions such as the following: Have you
ever watched old TV shows like I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver? What can you learn
about living in the 1950s from these shows? Read the title and author and talk about the
photograph. Explain that the image comes from an advertisement from the 1950s.
Introduce the Text
Guide students through the text, noting important ideas and nonfiction features. Help with
unfamiliar language so they can read the text successfully. Give special treatment to target
vocabulary. Here are some suggestions:
Page 2: Point out the Table of Contents. Suggested language: What are some
of the topics you will read about? Who are some of the people who might be
mentioned in the chapter on Rock and Roll?
Pages 4–5: Look at the photo. Ask: What details do you notice? Does it look like
people in the photo are deprived, or denied of any comforts? Point out the graph
on page 5. Explain that builders employed new methods for building houses in
the 1950s. Ask:What does the graph suggest about Americans’ pursuit of the
American dream during the 1950s?
Page 8: Have students find and read the word miraculous. Ask: What appliances
do we take for granted that might have been considered miraculous in the 1950s?
Now turn back to the beginning of the text to read about life in the 1950s.
Target Vocabulary
contested – accuracy or
rightness is called into
question, p. 12
culprit – person who is guilty
of doing something wrong or
committing a crime, p. 9
deprived – have something taken
away or denied, p. 4
something, p. 5
grimly – carried out in a stern or
forbidding manner, p. 9
pursuit – the act of chasing after,
p. 4
mentor – a wise advisor who
helps a newcomer, p. 9
scholastic – matters having to
do with education and schools,
p. 12
miraculous – amazing and
extraordinary, an unlikely
outcome, p. 8
tumult – a great, noisy, and
sometimes violent commotion,
p. 12
employed – used to accomplish
Grade 6
2
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Read
Have students read silently while you listen to individual students read aloud. Support their
understanding of the text as needed.
Remind students to use the Infer/Predict Strategy
to figure out text meaning as they read.
and to use text clues
Discuss and Revisit the Text
Personal Response
Invite students to share their personal responses to the selection.
Suggested language: How did your ideas about living in the 1950s change after reading
this book?
Ways of Thinking
As you discuss the text, help students understand these points:
Thinking Within the Text
Thinking Beyond the Text
Thinking About the Text
• The 1950s was a time of
prosperity for many, but people
were also worried about war, and
discrimination was common.
• Ideals don’t always match reality.
• Charts provide detailed
information about the 1950s.
• Cars, TV, and early rock ‘n roll
music reflect the culture of the
1950s.
• The prosperity of the 1950s was
not shared by minority groups
who faced inequality every day
during that decade.
• A growing economy supported
growth of suburbs and
ownership of cars and consumer
goods.
• Photographs show typical
scenes and cultural icons of the
1950s.
• A map shows the growth of the
highway system.
© 2006. Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, Heinemann, Portsmouth, N.H.
Choices for Further Support
• Fluency Invite students to choose a passage from the text to act out or use for
readers’ theater. Remind them to adjust their reading rate for a page of dense text
such as that on page 12.
• Comprehension Based on your observations of the students’ reading and discussion,
revisit parts of the text to clarify or extend comprehension. Remind students to go
back to the text to support their ideas.
• Phonics/Word Work Provide practice as needed with words and word parts, using
examples from the text. Remind students that some words derive from Greek or Latin
roots. For example, scholastic is derived from a Greek word, scholastikos, meaning
“of a school.”
Grade 6
3
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Writing about Reading
Vocabulary Practice
Have students complete the Vocabulary questions on BLM 2.1.
Responding
Have students use their Reader’s Notebook to complete the vocabulary activities on page
15. Remind them to answer the Word Teaser on page 16. (Answer: contested)
Reading Nonfiction
Nonfiction Features: Introduction and Conclusion Remind students that nonfiction has
many features to help readers find and understand important information. Graphics and
photographs are two of these features. Tell students that graphics can be as important as
the text in nonfiction books. They add to what is already explained in the text. Readers can
look at them before reading, during reading, and then return to them after they have read
the page. Graphics include charts and maps. Within these graphics, there might be other
helpful information, such as labels, captions, and keys.
Have students turn to page 5 in the text. Ask them to identify the type of graph shown.
(picture-graph) Have a volunteer tell what year home construction peaked. (1950)
Based on this information, ask how this fact might have affected sales of cars, TVs, and
appliances.
Explain that photos are another important source of information. They often add
information that is not in the text. Photos can sometimes have a more authentic quality
than illustrations.
Instruct students to examine the photograph and read the caption on page 14. Then have
students write a longer caption for the photo based on what they see in the background.
Writing Prompt: Thinking Beyond the Text
Have students write a response to the prompt on page 6. Remind them that when they
think beyond the text, they use their personal knowledge to reach new understandings.
Assessment Prompts
• What does the word conform mean on page 8?
• How does the map on page 6 help the reader understand the growth of the
car culture?
• What are two sentences on page 10 that support the author’s statement that
discrimination existed during the 1950s?
Grade 6
4
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English Language Development
Reading Support Pair advanced and intermediate readers to read aloud a few
paragraphs of the text, or use the audio or online text. Or have beginning students read the
captions.
Cultural Support Some English language learners may not be familiar with the various
cultural phenomena discussed in the text. Provide support for 3-D movies, TV dinners,
and fallout shelters.
Oral Language Development
Check student comprehension, using a dialogue that best matches your students’
English proficiency level. Speaker 1 is the teacher, Speaker 2 is the student.
Beginning/Early Intermediate
Intermediate
Early Advanced/ Advanced
Speaker 1: What decade does the
selection tell about?
Speaker 1: What pressures did men face
during the 1950s?
Speaker 1: What was the
American dream of the 1950s?
Speaker 2: the 1950s
Speaker 2: They were expected to
cooperate and conform.
Speaker 2: The American dream
included living in a suburban
house and driving a big car. This
ideal included owning TVs and
new appliances that made life
easier.
Speaker 1: What did William Levitt do?
Speaker 2: helped build suburbs
Speaker 1: How did TV dinners first
become popular?
Speaker 2: A company wanted to use up
leftover Thanksgiving turkey.
Lesson 2
Name
BLACKLINE MASTER 2.1
Date
Target Vocabulary
Life in the 1950s
Target Vocabulary
Fill in the outer circles of the Web with words that relate to
the Target Vocabulary word. Fill in the blanks in the example
sentences with the Target Vocabulary word and a word from the
Web. Then make a Web and write example sentences for two of
the other Target Vocabulary words. Possible responses shown.
Vocabulary
contested
grimly
mentor
miraculous
pursuit
employed
culprit
scholastic
tumult
deprived
argue
results
contested:
disputed or
challenged
undecided
disagree
Example Sentences:
The coach disagreed with the referee, so she contested
the
results of the game.
They contested the final vote count and continued to argue
the need for a recount.
Target Vocabulary
3
Grade 6, Unit 1: Finding Your Voice
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Grade 6
5
02.01_6_246260RNLEAN_Target Voca3 3
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Name
Date
Life in the 1950s
Thinking Beyond the Text
Think about the questions below. Then write your answer in one or two
paragraphs.
Remember that when you think beyond the text, you use your personal
knowledge to reach new understandings.
This book describes some people’s concept of an ideal life in the 1950s.
Was life in the 1950s as ideal as some like to remember it? Who was not
able to live the ideal 1950s life? What do you think it means to live an “ideal
life?” Does such a thing really exist? Use your experience and examples
from the selection to support your response.
Grade 6
6
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Lesson 2
Name
BLACKLINE MASTER 2.1
Date
Target Vocabulary
Life in the 1950s
Target Vocabulary
Fill in the outer circles of the Web with words that relate to
the Target Vocabulary word. Fill in the blanks in the example
sentences with the Target Vocabulary word and a word from the
Web. Then make a Web and write example sentences for two of
the other Target Vocabulary words.
Vocabulary
contested
grimly
mentor
miraculous
pursuit
employed
culprit
scholastic
tumult
deprived
argue
results
contested:
disputed or
challenged
Example Sentences:
the
The coach disagreed with the referee, so she
results of the game.
They contested the final vote count and continued to
the need for a recount.
Grade 6
7
Lesson 2: Life in the 1950s
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Student
Lesson 2
Date
BLACKLINE MASTER 2.23
Life in the 1950s • LEVEL U
page
Life in the 1950s
Running Record Form
Selection Text
3
Errors
Self-Corrections
Accuracy Rate
Total SelfCorrections
What do the 1950s make you think of? TV shows like I
Love Lucy might come to mind. You might recall rock ’n’ roll
stars like Elvis Presley. Perhaps you picture a girl wearing a
poodle skirt or a boy in rolled-up jeans. All of these things
were part of the 1950s.
However, life in the 1950s was not all fun and games.
Americans worried about nuclear war. They also worried about
fitting in and being “normal.” Minority groups faced
discrimination.
The 1950s had its problems, just like any other decade.
Still, many people remember it fondly. Let’s take a closer look.
Comments:
(# words read
correctly/102 ×
100)
%
Read word correctly
Code
✓
cat
Repeated word,
sentence, or phrase
®
Omission
—
cat
cat
Grade 6
Behavior
Error
0
0
Substitution
Code
cut
cat
1
Self-corrects
cut sc
cat
0
Insertion
the
1
cat
Error
1414233
Behavior
ˆ
Word told
1
8
T
cat
1
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