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Classroom activity Grade 3 English Language Arts

Reporter Notebooks at the Glassford Water Plant

A grade 3 partner role-play in which one student interviews the other about the night a water main broke, answering only from a printed fact card.

Objectives

  1. Students will conduct an interview using a strip of six prepared questions.
  2. Students will answer questions by pointing to the sentence on a fact card that gives the answer.
  3. Students will write two notebook sentences that use a fact from each card.

Vocabulary

Water main
A big underground pipe that carries drinking water beneath the streets to a neighborhood. Smaller service lines branch off it to reach each building.
Valve
A valve is a device in a pipe that operators can open or close to control where water flows. Valves let crews shut off one street for repairs without turning off the whole town.

Also: interview, control room, notebook

Teacher overview

Pairs of students role-play a newspaper interview about one night in the fictional town of Glassford, when a water main broke on Ridge Street. One partner is the reporter with a strip of questions, and the other is a water worker who may answer only from a printed fact card, which is what ties the game to the reading standard: every answer has to come from the text and be pointed to. The two cards also show that a large break can appear in the control room as a falling tank level before anyone sees water in the street, especially at night.

Activity Directions

  1. Before class, print one set of Fact Card A and Fact Card B per pair, plus one question strip per pair. Fold a sheet of paper into a small notebook for each student.
  2. Seat students in pairs. Explain the rule that makes the game work: the worker may say only what is written on the fact card, and after every answer the worker points to the sentence that holds it. The reporter checks the pointing before writing anything down.
  3. Model one round with a volunteer. Take the reporter's chair yourself, ask the first question, and have the volunteer read the answer from Card A and point to it. Then show a question the card cannot answer, such as what the worker ate for dinner, and say plainly that a reporter writes only what a source can support.
  4. Round 1 (8 minutes): Partner A holds Fact Card A and plays Ms. Farrow, the control room worker. Partner B is the reporter and asks the six questions in order, writing short answers in the notebook. Call time when the timer sounds, even if a pair is not finished.
  5. Round 2 (8 minutes): Partners trade roles and cards. Partner B now holds Fact Card B and plays Mr. Tarrant, the repair crew leader, and Partner A interviews with the same six questions.
  6. Writing (8 minutes): Each student answers handout questions 1 through 5 in the notebook. The last one asks for two sentences that use a fact from each card.
  7. The activity ends after both rounds and the writing. Gather the class and ask two debrief questions aloud: which card told you a pipe was broken before anyone saw water, and why did the reporter need both people instead of just one.
Reporter Notebooks at the Glassford Water Plant — Grade 3 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Fact Card A: Ms. Farrow, control room

I work in the control room at the Glassford water plant. Screens on my wall show how much water is in the tank on Ridge Street. At twenty minutes to three in the morning, the tank level started dropping fast. Water was leaving the pipes faster than we could make it. That told me a pipe was broken somewhere in town. I called the repair crew right away. Then I started a second pump, so the rest of town still had water. The hardest part of my job is deciding fast when I cannot see the pipe myself. By breakfast the tank was full again.

Fact Card B: Mr. Tarrant, repair crew leader

I lead the night repair crew in Glassford. My phone rang a few minutes before three. Ms. Farrow told me the tank was dropping fast. We drove to Ridge Street and looked for water where it should not be. We found it bubbling up through a crack in the road by a mailbox. We closed two valves to shut off that piece of pipe. Then we dug down, cut out the broken part, and put in a new piece. The hardest part was digging in the cold rain. Before we let the water back to the houses, we flushed the pipe and tested the water.

Question strip for the reporter

Ask these six questions in order. After each answer, ask your partner to point to the sentence.

  • What is your job?
  • How did you know something was wrong?
  • What did you do first?
  • Who else did you talk to?
  • What was the hardest part?
  • What happened in the end?

Notebook questions

  1. What did Ms. Farrow see on her screens that told her something was wrong?
  2. What did Ms. Farrow do after she called the repair crew?
  3. How did Mr. Tarrant's crew find the leak on Ridge Street?
  4. What did the crew do before they let water go back to the houses?
  5. Write two sentences about the night the main broke. Use one fact from Card A and one fact from Card B.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: The tank level was dropping fast. Card A says water was leaving the pipes faster than the plant could make it.
  2. Answer: She started a second pump. Card A says she did this so the rest of town still had water.
  3. Answer: They looked for water where it should not be and found it bubbling up through a crack in the road by a mailbox.
  4. Answer: They flushed the pipe and tested the water. Card B states both steps in the last sentence.
  5. Answer: Answers will vary. A complete response has two sentences, one fact from each card, such as the control room noticed the tank dropping and the crew closed two valves before digging.

Differentiation

Support

Pair these students with a strong reader and give them the reporter role first, so they listen before they read aloud. Provide a copy of each card with the six answers numbered in the margin to match the six questions on the strip.

Extension

Ask students to write two more interview questions that neither card can answer, then say who in the town of Glassford would be the right person to ask. Students who finish early can write the short news article that a reporter would file after both interviews.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "interview," "control room," "valve," and "main" with pictures, and post the six questions on the board with a picture cue beside each one. Allow the worker to read the answer sentence straight from the card rather than putting it in their own words, and allow notebook answers in short phrases.

Extensions

The same pair structure works with two new cards written by the students themselves for a different night at the plant, such as a power failure during a storm. Writing the card first and then being interviewed from it shows students quickly how much a source has to include before a question can be answered.