Lesson
2
:
Learning Curiosity from a Nonfiction Text
Grade
Grade 6
UNIT
4
•
Curiosity
In Unit 4, Lesson 2, “Learning Curiosity from a Nonfiction Text,” students will learn examples of curiosity from the life of Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to travel into space. Students will practice their reading comprehension skills by reading a nonfiction text. Additionally, students will answer questions to develop their critical thinking skills and advance their academic dialogue skills through class discussion.
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SUGGESTED TIME:
- The book, Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments From My Life by Mae Jemison, is 18 chapters.
- The suggested reading schedule, either for in-class reading or for homework, is two chapters per session for a total of 9 class periods or 9 homework assignments.
- Please allow at least 50 minutes of in-class time to have a class discussion of the book.
RELATED SUBJECT:
English Language Arts
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
- Read a nonfiction book
- Determine the author’s purpose in the text
- Compose answers to questions about the text that demonstrate reading comprehension
- Demonstrate understanding of standard English sentence structure and grammar
- Practice reading and conversation skills by sharing sentences with classmates
REQUIRED MATERIALS:
- Book: Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments From My Life by Mae Jemison,
- Video: Mae Jemison: First African American Woman in Space by Biography (~3 min)
- Video: Dr. Mae Jemison and Defying Gravity: Women in Space by Microsoft (~3 min)
- Prohuman Grade 6 Unit 4 Worksheet 2: Learning Curiosity from a Nonfiction Text
ELA COMMON CORE STANDARDS MET
CHARACTER AND SOCIAL EMOTIONAL (CSED) NATIONAL STANDARDS MET
LESSON PROCEDURE
Step 1:
- Explain that we will be reading a book by Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space.
- Play the video: Mae Jemison: First African American Woman in Space by Biography (~3 min)
- Play the video: Dr. Mae Jemison and Defying Gravity: Women in Space by Microsoft (~3 min)
- Ask students what they found most interesting about Mae Jemison.
- Ask students what they would like to learn more about Mae Jemison.
Step 2:
- Have students complete the book, either through multiple in-class silent reading sessions or as homework: Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments From My Life by Mae Jemison.
- Have students complete the short-answer questions on the worksheet as they read the book.
Step 3:
- Allow at least 50 minutes for in-class discussion of the short-answer questions on the worksheet.
GRADE 6 UNIT 4 WORKSHEET 2: LEARNING CURIOSITY FROM A NONFICTION TEXT
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER WHILE READING Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments From My Life
- What were some of the things that Mae was curious about as a kid?
- In the chapter “Caught in the Eye of the Hurricane,” why does Mae think that experiencing some hardships can be good for a child?
- In the chapter “Caught in the Eye of the Hurricane,” what was the “unspoken vow” that Mae made in the summer of 1968? How was this vow important to her work as a Peace Corps physician and an astronaut?
- In the chapter “Caught in the Eye of the Hurricane,” what is Mae’s perspective on how America treated women and people of African descent at the time of the country’s founding? What is her perspective on our responsibility about those injustices now?
- In the chapter “Wind Currents,” in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, what are the ways that Mae started keeping track of how the world recognizes each person as an “individual, a full person, a human being with an identity”?
- In the chapter “Updraft,” how did Mae show intellectual character while working in the lab?
- In the chapter “Finding a Place,” what was Mae’s response to the boy’s question about why Mae didn’t “hang with her own kind”?
- In the chapter “Encounters with the Santa Ana,” how did Mae experience mistreatment in college because of her race and gender? How did she overcome this mistreatment?
- In the chapter “A Southerly Wind Blows,” what did Mae conclude from her travels in Kenya, Egypt, and Israel?
- In the chapter “Vortex,” what did Mae learn from her experiences as the Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia?
- In the chapter “Harnessing Explosions,” what happened in 1986 that made it remarkable that Mae applied to be an astronaut? How did she make history?
- Write about and share a principle that you want to live by that you learned from reading this book.
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/
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