Wild Tongues

Set a Purpose for Reading/Preview Text Features (15 minutes)  

• Look at page 25 with the class. Point out the labels “Paired Texts” and “One topic, two stories.” Have a volunteer read aloud the headline and subhead on page 26 and on page 27. Point out the images that accompany the texts. Then ask students to identify the topic of each story. (The first describes the features of a human child’s tongue, and the second describes the features of a chameleon’s tongue.)
  
• Call on volunteers to read aloud the Think and Read box on page 25 and the Think and Write box on page 27. As students read both articles, remind them to look for details that show how human tongues and chameleon tongues are alike and how they are different.

Introduce Vocabulary (15 minutes)

• We have highlighted in bold four domain-specific terms that may be challenging and defined them on the page: detect, savory, prey, and tissue.
  

• Preview these terms by projecting or distributing our Vocabulary Skill Builder and completing it as a class. You may also play our Vocabulary Slideshow, in which audio and images help students with pronunciation and comprehension.

Reading and Unpacking the Texts

• First read: Students should read the articles one time for general comprehension. 

• Direct students to take our Online Poll on the Student View of our website to answer the question “Can you roll your tongue?” Students will be able to see nationwide results of the poll! Alternatively, create a classroom poll using an online tool (such as Google Forms or Kahoot!) or more simply by asking students to raise their hands to indicate their answers. Discuss how your poll results compare with the 65-80 percent figure from the first text.

• Second read: Project, distribute, or assign the Close-Reading and Critical-Thinking Questions to the class. Preview them together. Ask students to read the articles again and answer the questions as a class or in pairs. (Alternatively, assign all or part of the Learning Journey Slide Deck, which contains the questions as well as other activities from this lesson plan and a link to the stories.) 

• Follow up with the SEL Focus activity.

Close-Reading Questions (30 minutes)

• Read the first section of “Your Tongue.” Why do you think the section has the title “Your tongue is more fascinating than you think.”? What would be another good title for this section? (text features/author’s craft) The section has this title because it contains interesting information about your tongue that you might not know about, like how long it is,  that it’s covered with taste buds, and that it’s attached in a way that prevents you from swallowing it. Answers will vary for the second part of the question.
• Read “It’s a tasting machine.” Why do we have different kinds of taste buds? (main idea) Different kinds of taste buds help us notice different flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory.
• Read “Your tongue is made up of slimy muscles.” Why are the muscles in our tongues so important? (key details) We use the powerful muscles in our tongues to chew and swallow our food and to help us talk.
• Read the first section of “A Chameleon’s Tongue.” How does the length of a chameleon’s tongue compare with the length of a human tongue? (compare and contrast) A chameleon’s tongue can be more than 4 feet long. A human tongue is much smaller, about 3 inches long.
• Read “It’s one of the fastest tongues in the world.” Why does the chameleon need such a fast tongue? (main idea) The chameleon catches its food with its tongue. The animals that a chameleon hunts and eats move quickly, so its tongue needs to move quickly too.
• Read the last two sections of “A Chameleon’s Tongue.” Which two features of chameleons’ tongues help them catch and eat their food? (main idea/supporting details) The stretchy tissue of the chameleon’s tongue and the thick spit on its tip help chameleons catch and eat their food. The stretchy tissue allows the tongue to act like a rubber band. The chameleon can shoot out its long tongue super quickly and catch its food. Then the tongue shoots back into the chameleon’s mouth so it can swallow its food. The thick spit on a chameleon’s tongue works like glue so its food will stick to its tongue.

Critical-Thinking Questions (10 minutes)

• Compare how humans use their tongues to eat with how chameleons use their tongues to eat. (compare and contrast) The 10,000 taste buds on the human tongue help us notice different flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory. The super-powerful muscles in the human tongue enable us to chew and swallow our food. A chameleon uses its tongue to eat in a very different way. Its tongue moves incredibly fast in order to catch the bugs and birds it eats. This long tongue shoots out and returns very quickly to the chameleon’s mouth. The super-sticky spit on a chameleon’s tongue is 400 times thicker than the spit on human tongues. This spit works like  glue, so a chameleon’s food sticks to its tongue and doesn’t fall off.
• Would you rather have a human tongue or a chameleon tongue? Explain your answer using details from the articles. (connecting to the text) Answers will vary but should include supporting details from the articles.

Celebrating Differences

As these articles show, the same body part can be extraordinarily different on different living things. Ask students to think about some of their other body parts and how they are similar to and different from the corresponding parts on other animals. For example, a student might point out that although humans and dogs both have noses, a dog’s sense of smell is far more powerful than a human’s—or that both humans and giraffes have necks, but the giraffe’s is much longer. Encourage students to celebrate both by identifying different strengths that each one has.

Featured Skill: Compare and Contrast

• Distribute our Compare and Contrast Skill Builder and have students complete it in class or for homework.  
• Discuss the writing assignment in the Think and Write box on page 27. Remind students to include details from both articles in their journal entries.