Reading passage Grade 6 Social Studies & Civics
Why Deepford Grew Beside the Brennig River Dam
An original grade 6 passage about a fictional mill town whose dam shaped where people lived and worked, and the choice the town faces now that the mill is gone.
Objectives
- Students will cite details from the passage to explain why the town grew where it did.
- Students will infer why residents disagree about the future of the dam.
- Students will use context clues to define the word sediment.
Vocabulary
- Dam
- A strong wall built across a river to hold back water. Dams store water for people and farms, help prevent floods, and can make electricity.
- Fish ladder
- A series of water steps built beside a dam so migrating fish, like salmon, can swim past it. Fish leap or swim from pool to pool to reach the river above.
- Spillway
- A dam's overflow channel, giving extra water a safe path around or over the dam when the reservoir gets too full. It protects the dam from being damaged in floods.
Also: mill, sediment
Teacher overview
Thousands of small mill dams still stand on American rivers long after the mills they powered shut down, and the towns that own them now have to decide what to do next. This original passage follows a fictional town, Deepford, from the building of its dam in 1843 to a town meeting held this spring. The passage gives students a case in which an economic decision reshaped a river, a street plan, and a set of family habits, and it ends with the town's choice still open.
Passage
The Brennig River drops about forty feet as it crosses the town of Deepford. That drop is the reason the town sits where it does.
In 1843 a group of families built a dam across the river. The dam stood fourteen feet high. It was made of stone, timber, and packed clay. Water backed up behind it and formed a long, shallow pond. The pond held water through dry weeks, so the wheel below the dam could turn all summer. First it turned a grain mill. Twenty years later it turned a textile mill with more than a hundred workers.
The mill decided the shape of the town. Workers wanted to walk to their shifts, so houses went up on the west bank close to the gate. The company store, the church, and the school followed. Roads bent toward the mill instead of following the river. Farmers hauled grain to the same spot, so a feed store and a blacksmith opened there too. By 1880 nearly every job in Deepford depended in some way on the drop in the river.
The pond became part of the town's life as well. In winter, crews cut blocks of ice from it and packed them in sawdust for summer. In August, families swam off the flat rock at the north end. Church groups held picnics on the shore.
The river changed too. Before the dam, shad and river herring swam up the Brennig each spring to lay their eggs. Older residents remembered nets full of fish at the shallows above town. The dam blocked that path. Within a few years the spring runs ended above Deepford, and the shallows went quiet. Sediment also changed the river. Sand and silt that once traveled downstream settled to the bottom of the pond instead. Layer by layer, the pond grew shallower and warmer.
The textile mill closed in 1961. The building stood empty for a decade and then burned. The dam stayed. Because no company owned it any longer, it passed to the town.
For sixty years the dam mostly took care of itself. Then a state inspector walked the structure last fall and found cracks in the spillway and water seeping through the base. She told the town that the dam was no longer safe to leave alone. Deepford now has three choices, and the town council has asked residents to weigh in.
The first choice is to repair the dam and keep the pond. Repair means new concrete on the spillway, grouting at the base, and regular inspections after that. The town would pay for the work with a bond, which residents repay through taxes over many years.
The second choice is to repair the dam and add a fish ladder. A fish ladder is a set of stepped pools that lets fish climb past a dam. This costs more than a plain repair, and it would let shad reach the shallows above town for the first time since the 1840s.
The third choice is to remove the dam. The river would return to a channel, the pond would drain, and the shallows would come back. Removal also means dealing with the sediment behind the dam, which cannot simply be flushed downstream.
At the March meeting, residents lined up on both sides. A woman who has swum in the pond since she was six said the pond is the reason her family stayed in Deepford. A man who fishes the river below town said he would like his grandchildren to see a spring run. The council took no vote that night. It scheduled a second meeting for June.
Questions
- Why did the families of 1843 build the dam across the Brennig River?
- According to the passage, what happened to the spring fish runs above Deepford after the dam was built?
- Give two examples from the passage showing that the pond became part of the town's life.
- The passage says roads in Deepford bent toward the mill instead of following the river. What does that detail tell you about how the mill shaped the town?
- What does the word sediment mean as it is used in the passage? Name the clue you used.
- Why is the choice facing Deepford a hard one? Use one detail that supports keeping the dam and one detail that supports removing it.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Answer Key
- Answer: To power a mill. The passage explains that the river drops about forty feet at Deepford and that the pond behind the dam held water so the wheel could turn all summer, first for a grain mill and later for a textile mill.
- Answer: They ended above the town. The passage states that the dam blocked the path shad and river herring used each spring, and that within a few years the runs above Deepford ended and the shallows went quiet.
- Answer: Ice cutting and swimming or picnics. The passage describes winter crews cutting ice blocks and packing them in sawdust, families swimming off the flat rock in August, and church groups holding picnics on the shore.
- Answer: The mill came first and the town was built around it. Because workers wanted to walk to their shifts, houses, the store, the church, and the school were placed near the mill gate, so the street plan followed the workplace rather than the river.
- Answer: Sand and silt carried by a river. The passage says that sand and silt that once traveled downstream settled to the bottom of the pond, and that the pond grew shallower layer by layer, which shows sediment is material that drops out of moving water.
- Answer: Accept any answer that names one detail on each side. Details for keeping the dam include the swimming rock, the pond as a reason a family stayed, and the sediment behind the dam that removal would have to deal with. Details for removing it include the blocked spring runs, the cracked spillway, seeping water, and the chance for shad to return.
Differentiation
Support
Read the first three paragraphs aloud while students follow along, then let them read the rest with a partner. Provide a two-column organizer labeled "Reasons to keep the dam" and "Reasons to remove the dam" for use during the second read, and allow students to answer question 6 by listing details rather than writing a paragraph.
Extension
Ask students to write the short statement one of the residents might read at the June meeting, using at least three details from the passage and identifying which choice the speaker supports. Students can also research whether their state keeps a public list of dams and their conditions.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "dam," "mill," "pond," "spillway," and "fish ladder" with simple labeled sketches, and show the fish ladder as a set of steps beside the dam. Provide a sentence frame for question 5: "Sediment means ___. I know because the passage says ___."
Extensions
Students can compare Deepford's three choices with a decision made about a real dam near them, using a local news account or a state dam safety page, and then chart which arguments appear in both places.