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Worksheet Grade 7 English Language Arts

Rain Gardens on Winnow Creek: A Citing-Evidence Worksheet

A grade 7 ELA worksheet where students read a short text about a fictional rain-garden program and cite several details to answer literal and inferential questions.

Objectives

  1. Students will cite several pieces of textual evidence to answer literal questions.
  2. Students will draw and support an inference about how rain gardens reduce runoff.

Vocabulary

Rain garden
A rain garden is a shallow planted dip in the ground that catches rain running off a roof or driveway and lets it soak slowly into the soil. Its deep-rooted plants help clean the water.

Also: runoff, permeable, impervious

Teacher overview

The fictional neighborhood of Winnow Creek floods a little every time it rains hard, so the town started a rain-garden program. This worksheet gives students a short informational text about that program, then asks them to answer questions by citing specific details. The item set mixes literal recall with inference, so students practice supporting an idea with more than one piece of evidence, which is the heart of the grade 7 citing standard.

Rain Gardens on Winnow Creek: A Citing-Evidence Worksheet — Grade 7 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read the text, then answer the questions. When a question asks for evidence, point to the exact detail in the text that supports your answer.

Winnow Creek's rain-garden program. Winnow Creek is a neighborhood with many roofs, driveways, and paved streets. These hard surfaces are called impervious, which means water cannot soak through them. When rain falls, it runs off the hard surfaces instead of sinking into the ground. This moving water is called runoff. The runoff rushes into storm drains, picks up oil and litter, and pours into the creek all at once. After big storms, the creek rises fast and floods the low streets.

Two years ago, the town began building rain gardens. A rain garden is a shallow, planted dip in the ground. It sits where runoff would normally flow toward a drain. The soil in a rain garden is loose and permeable, which means water can soak through it. When runoff reaches the garden, it collects there and slowly sinks into the soil. The plants and soil also trap some of the dirt and oil the water carried. Less water reaches the creek at once, so the creek rises more slowly.

The town asked residents to help. Homeowners who added a rain garden received free plants. A year later, the streets near the new gardens flooded less than they had before. Some residents said their yards looked better too. The town now plans to add gardens along the streets that still flood.

  1. In your own words, what does "impervious" mean? Use the text to explain.
  2. What does the text say runoff picks up as it moves across hard surfaces?
  3. Cite two details from the text that explain how a rain garden slows the water reaching the creek.
  4. Why does loose, permeable soil matter in a rain garden? Support your answer with the text.
  5. The text says the creek "rises fast" after big storms. Explain what causes that fast rise, using evidence.
  6. What is one result the town noticed a year after building the gardens? Cite the text.
  7. Based on the text, why do you think the town is adding gardens along the streets that still flood? Support your inference.
  8. A reader claims that rain gardens do more than one job for Winnow Creek. Cite two different details from the text that support this claim.

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: Impervious means water cannot soak through a surface. The text defines it that way and gives roofs, driveways, and paved streets as examples.
  2. Answer: Oil and litter. The text says runoff picks up oil and litter as it moves toward the storm drains.
  3. Answer: Any two of: the garden sits where runoff would flow toward a drain; runoff collects in the garden's dip; the loose, permeable soil lets water soak in slowly. Each detail shows less water reaching the creek at once.
  4. Answer: Permeable soil matters because water can soak through it, so the runoff sinks into the ground instead of rushing to the creek. The text ties the loose soil directly to water soaking in.
  5. Answer: The hard, impervious surfaces send all the rain rushing into the drains and creek at once, rather than letting it soak in gradually. Students should cite the impervious surfaces and the "all at once" detail.
  6. Answer: The streets near the new gardens flooded less than before, and some residents said their yards looked better. Either result, cited from the text, is acceptable.
  7. Answer: Answers will vary but should infer that the gardens reduced flooding where they were built, so the town expects the same result on the streets that still flood. A strong answer cites the "flooded less" result as the basis.
  8. Answer: Any two of: the gardens reduce flooding, they trap dirt and oil, and they improve how yards look. Citing two different jobs supports the claim that a rain garden does more than one thing.

Differentiation

Support

Provide the text with the answer to each literal question underlined and labeled by question number, so students can focus on writing the evidence in their own words. Allow one-phrase answers for items 1, 2, and 6.

Extension

Ask students to write a short paragraph advising a nearby neighborhood on whether rain gardens would help it, using at least three cited details from the Winnow Creek text to support the advice.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "runoff," "permeable," and "impervious" with a simple picture of water running off a roof versus soaking into soil. Provide a sentence frame for the evidence items: "The text says ___, which shows ___."