Graphic organizer Grade 3 English Language Arts
Why the Wells Ran Low in Pyewell: A Cause-and-Effect Chain
A grade 3 cause-and-effect chain organizer with six event cards about a fictional town whose wells dropped during a dry summer, plus a filled example.
Objectives
- Students will order six events into a cause-and-effect chain.
- Students will name which event made the shortage worse.
- Students will turn the finished chain into an explanatory paragraph.
Vocabulary
- Pump
- A pump is a machine that adds energy to water to move it or push it uphill, doing the job gravity cannot do on its own. Water systems use many different kinds of pumps to move water from wells, through treatment, and out to customers.
Also: well, soak in, water level, cause
Teacher overview
This organizer is a six-box cause-and-effect chain, read left to right, that traces one dry summer in Pyewell, a fictional town that pumps all of its water from wells. Students place six event cards into the chain, then use the finished chain as the plan for an explanatory paragraph, so the organizer does double duty as a reading tool and a writing plan. Third graders very often picture a well as an underground room holding a pool of open water, which makes them expect a well to refill the instant rain begins. Card D is the one that fixes that idea, and it is worth reading aloud before students start placing cards.
Organizer
Event cards. These six things happened in the town of Pyewell last summer. They are not in order.
| Card | What happened |
|---|---|
| A | The town asked everyone to stop watering lawns until the fall rains came. |
| B | Almost no rain fell in June, July, or August. |
| C | The water level inside the town wells dropped. |
| D | Less rain soaked into the ground, so less water reached the sand and gravel below. |
| E | Two of the four town wells could not pump enough water on hot afternoons. |
| F | Families watered gardens and lawns more than usual, because the yards were dry. |
The chain. Write the letter of the card in each box, then say the same thing in your own words.
| Box | What belongs here | Card | In my own words |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The weather that started the chain | ||
| 2 | What less rain did under the ground | ||
| 3 | What happened inside the wells | ||
| 4 | What the wells could not do | ||
| 5 | What people were doing that made it worse | ||
| 6 | What the town did about it |
Box 1 → Box 2 → Box 3 → Box 4 → Box 5 → Box 6
Joining words. Use one of these in each sentence when you write your paragraph: because, so, then, after that.
| My paragraph plan | Write your sentence here |
|---|---|
| Topic sentence: what this paragraph is about | |
| Sentence 2: boxes 1 and 2 | |
| Sentence 3: boxes 3 and 4 | |
| Sentence 4: box 5 | |
| Last sentence: box 6 |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
| Box | What belongs here | Card | In my own words |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The weather that started the chain | B | Almost no rain fell for three whole months. |
| 2 | What less rain did under the ground | D | Less water soaked down into the sand and gravel under the town. |
| 3 | What happened inside the wells | C | The water level inside the wells went down. |
| 4 | What the wells could not do | E | Two wells could not pump enough water on hot afternoons. |
| 5 | What people were doing that made it worse | F | Families watered their dry gardens and lawns even more. |
| 6 | What the town did about it | A | The town asked everyone to stop watering lawns until fall. |
Box 1 (B) → Box 2 (D) → Box 3 (C) → Box 4 (E) → Box 5 (F) → Box 6 (A)
| My paragraph plan | Sample sentence |
|---|---|
| Topic sentence | Last summer the wells in the town of Pyewell ran low because of one long dry stretch of weather. |
| Sentence 2: boxes 1 and 2 | Almost no rain fell in June, July, or August, so very little water soaked down into the sand and gravel under the town. |
| Sentence 3: boxes 3 and 4 | The water level inside the wells dropped, and then two of the four wells could not pump enough on hot afternoons. |
| Sentence 4: box 5 | It got worse because families watered their dry gardens and lawns more than usual. |
| Last sentence: box 6 | After that, the town asked everyone to stop watering lawns until the fall rains came. |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students the six cards already cut apart, with cards B and A placed in boxes 1 and 6 so that only the middle four must be sorted. Allow the own-words column to be a drawing with one label, and let the paragraph be dictated to a partner or an adult who writes it down.
Extension
Ask students to add a seventh box to the chain showing what should happen after the fall rains arrive, and to write the sentence that would go with it. The new box must follow from what the chain already says about water soaking into the ground, rather than from a guess.
ELL supports
Build the ground in front of the class before the organizer begins: fill a clear cup with sand and gravel, pour water in slowly, and let students see the water level rise between the grains rather than sitting in an open pool. Post the joining words because, so, then, and after that on a chart with an arrow beside each. Provide the frame "Box ___ happened because box ___ happened first."
Extensions
Students can use the same six-box shape for a second chain about a wet spring in the same town, writing their own event cards this time. Comparing the two chains side by side shows that the shape holds even when the weather at the start of it changes.