Learning Courage from a Nonfiction Text
Grade
Grade 5
UNIT
3
•
Courage
In Unit 5, Lesson 2, “Learning Courage from a Nonfiction Text,” students will learn an example of courage from the life of a real person. By independently reading a nonfiction text, students will develop their reading comprehension skills. Finally, students will create their own sentences that demonstrate their reading comprehension and share their sentences with a partner.
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SUGGESTED TIME:
30 minutes
RELATED SUBJECT:
English Language Arts
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
- Read a nonfiction text independently to develop reading comprehension skills
- Demonstrate understanding of the main idea of a nonfiction text
- Compose sentences that demonstrate comprehension of the word courage
- Demonstrate understanding of standard English sentence structure and grammar
- Practice reading and conversation skills by sharing sentences with classmates
REQUIRED MATERIALS:
- Video: William Still, The Underground Railroad by The Gist of Freedom (~2 min; end video at 1:49)
- Book: William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad by Don Tate or
- Video: Read aloud of William Still and His Freedom Stories by JoyLit (~16 min)
- Prohuman Grade 5 Unit 5 Worksheet 2: Learning Courage from a Nonfiction Text
VOCABULARY:.
- Slavery: The practice of people owning other people. Enslaved people had to work for the owners, doing whatever the owners asked them to do. In the past, many societies had slavery, including America. Now, almost all societies consider slavery to be wrong. Freedom is a basic human right. (Source: Britannica Kids)
- Abolitionism: The movement to end slavery and free enslaved people.
- Underground Railroad: The Underground Railroad was not an actual railway. Instead, it was a secret organization that existed in the United States before the Civil War. The people of the Underground Railroad helped escaped enslaved people from the South to reach places of safety in the North or in Canada. (Source: Britannica Kids)
- Courage: I do what I think is right even when I am afraid.
ELA COMMON CORE STANDARDS MET
CHARACTER AND SOCIAL EMOTIONAL (CSED) NATIONAL STANDARDS MET
LESSON PROCEDURE
- Tell the students that today they will learn about an important American who showed courage. His name was William Still.
- Play the video: William Still, The Underground Railroad by The Gist of Freedom (~2 min; end video at 1:49)
- Have students read the book: William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad by Don Tate or
- Play the video: Read aloud of William Still and His Freedom Stories by JoyLit (~16 min)
- Have students write the answers to the worksheet questions.
- Have students share their answers with a partner.
GRADE 5 UNIT 3 WORKSHEET 2: LEARNING GRATITUDE FROM A NONFICTION TEXT
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER AFTER READING William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad by Don Tate:
- How did William Still and his family experience injustice, prejudice, and discrimination?
- What experience did William have as a child, which the book says “defined the rest of his life”?
- What did the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society do to promote the abolition of slavery?
- What was the Fugitive Slave Act? How did it put William in danger, and how did he show courage?
- Why were the stories that William published in his 1872 book The Underground Railroad important?
- What did you learn about courage from William, and how can you show courage in your life?
Prohuman K-12 Curriculum © 2025 by Prohuman Foundation is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/