= Partner SiteInformational
Informational pieces are nonfiction texts that have the goal of educating or instructing the reader. Informational texts may be on almost any topic, including science, social studies, math, crafts, games, cooking, sports, etc.
Writing was a means of escape for Louisa May Alcott. Through her words, she explored and chronicled the world around her. Her most famous novel, Little Women, was inspired by her own family life. A prolific writer and storyteller, she was the author of many novels as well as children’s…
The Yukon Quest is a 1,000-mile dog sled race that takes place every February. The race is run between the cities of Fairbanks, Alaska and Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon Territory. Sled dogs and their mushers, or drivers, race through extreme weather conditions. They also race over mountains and frozen rivers.…
If you’re hiking and you spot a rusty old can, you may be tempted to pick it up for proper disposal. While that sentiment is worthy of admiration, it might not always be proper, or even legal. Laws protect archaeological resources on public lands and even in rivers, lakes, and…
On April 18, 1906, a massive earthquake shook Northern California, including San Francisco, the fourth largest city in the U.S. at that time. Novelist and journalist Jack London was hired by Collier’s, the National Weekly magazine to report on the event. The beginning of his report is below. ——————————— THE…
Skylab was America’s first space station. The 169,950-pound station orbited Earth from 1973 to 1979. Astronauts lived aboard the station and conducted scientific experiments. They also studied the Sun using the station’s solar observatory. Skylab proved that it was possible for astronauts to spend extended periods in space. On May…
There are billions of telephones in the world today. They have been around for a long time. In fact, not a single person on Earth today was alive when the telephone was first invented. The word telephone is even older than the device. It comes from the ancient Greek words…
Think about a garden. It is filled with plants that have flowers. How did they get there? What makes a flower grow? First, there is a seed. The seed is hard on the outside. That keeps what is inside nice and safe. Inside the seed is a baby plant. There…
The French Revolution, whose roots began in 1787 and continued until 1799, marked the creation of the modern era. It is widely considered one of the seminal events in human history. The Revolution’s origin stemmed from a complex interaction of factors including: (1) the political aspirations of a growing class…
Robert Louis Stevens was a Scottish author, famous for his novels Kidnapped and Treasure Island. In 1879 he took a trip across the U.S. In this passage he talks about crossing the plains of Nebraska on the train. —————————— It had thundered on the Friday night, but the sun rose…
Sally Ride was the first woman astronaut from the U.S. to go into space. She flew two missions on the space shuttle. One was in August 1983, and the other was in October 1984. Both times she flew as a member of the crew of the space shuttle Challenger. Sally…
