Use Text Evidence

Ready-to-teach lesson

TUMBLETA · VERIFIED STANDARDS LAYER Use Text Evidence Ontario · Grade 1 · Skill lesson
WINNER STRAND Language Grade 1 - Critical Thinking in Literacy / Analyzing Texts	C3.3

STANDARD

analyze simple texts, including literary and informational texts, by identifying and sequencing important information and events

WHY THIS LESSON EARNS THE CODE

Students sequence the repeated door events and use that ordered evidence to determine what triggers each stampede.

PLACEMENT

TEACHES - the student task directly practices the cited expectation. The canonical lesson follows unchanged.

Source: Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8: Language, 2023.

Verified 2026-09-08 · strict winner-only audit

TUMBLETA · SKILL LESSON

Pigs · Grade 1 · Book 4195

Full lesson

TIME

34 minutes

OBJECTIVE

Find what causes the stampedes in this book, and prove it from the three doors.

STUDENT PRODUCT

A table of the three doors and the three steps

FOCUS

A cause you can test, because the book runs it three times

page 1

Essential question

The doors are open twice and nothing happens. So what actually sets the pigs off?

Materials

The book

Pages 2, 5 and 7, found before the lesson

One table each with the three doors filled in

Text to mark before teaching

Passage 2 — at the gate, deciding they are harmless

Passage 4 — the kitchen full of pigs, seen through the window

Passage 5 — the front door, and the same three steps

Passage 7 — the school door, and the same three steps again

Lesson sequence

1 Launch · 4 min

Focus:: A reason she says out loud
Teacher direction:: Read the gate page. Ask the class why Megan opened it - and do not accept because she wanted to.

The reason is written on the page, in what she says about the pigs first.

Prepared text:: Passage 2 2 Teacher model · 7 min
Teacher model:: I read the three door pages one after another and I say the same because three times. The pigs do not move when the gate is open a little. They do not move when it is open more. They move when Megan shouts at them - so the shout is what starts the stampede, not the door. The door only decides where they can go.
Prepared text:: Passage 2, Passage 5, Passage 7 3 The same three steps, three times · 13 min
Focus:: Open a little, open more, then shout

page 2

Teacher direction:: Using Passages 2, 5 and 7, write the three steps that happen at every door in this book, and say which step causes the stampede.
Expected answer:: At the gate, at the front door of the house and at the door of the school, the same three steps happen.

Megan opens it a little and the pigs do nothing. She opens it further and they still do nothing. Then she shouts at them, calling them dumb pigs, and they all jump up and run right over her and out through the opening. The shout is what causes the stampede: the pigs ignore the open door twice, and only move when she yells. Which means she causes the same thing three times without ever noticing she is doing it.

Student product:: A table: three doors, three steps, what caused it
Prepared text:: Passage 2, Passage 5, Passage 7 4 Why she opened the gate at all · 10 min
Focus:: A wrong idea, and everything that follows from it
Teacher direction:: Using Passages 2 and 4, write why Megan opened the gate, and what that caused.
Expected answer:: She opened it because she had decided the pigs were the stupidest animals she had ever seen and would not do anything even if the gate were open - she says so before she touches it. Everything else in the book follows from that one idea being wrong. The pigs get out, they get into her own house, a pig drinks her father's coffee, one eats his newspaper and one wets his shoe, and her father shouts at her to get them out. After that she says it herself: maybe pigs are not so dumb after all.
Prepared text:: Passage 2, Passage 4

page 3

Teacher guidance

Why this text works: This book is a controlled experiment and it is worth teaching it as one. The same three steps happen at three different doors, and the outcome is the same every time, so a class can work out which step is doing the work by noticing which steps produce nothing. Ask what would happen if Megan opened the door and said nothing - the book has already answered, twice per round. Then ask why she keeps shouting. Nobody in the book ever points out that her own shouting is the problem, which is why the class gets to.

Expected answer:: Every door in this book is opened the same way. Megan opens it a little and the pigs do nothing at all.

She opens it further and they still do nothing. Then she shouts at them, and every time they jump up, run straight over her and out. So the stampede is caused by the shout and not by the door - the pigs ignore an open door twice in a row on every occasion. Behind all of it is the reason she opened the first gate: she had decided the pigs were too stupid to do anything about it, and she says so on the page before she opens it.

Model: I notice that Megan causes the same thing three times and never notices. She shouts at the pigs at the gate and they trample her; she shouts at them in the house and they trample her; she shouts at them in the school and they trample her again. Nobody in the book tells her, and she does not work it out.

Support and extension

Above: Megan uses the same method three times and gets knocked over three times. Explain what she should have tried instead, and what in the book supports your answer.

Below: Fill the table for the three doors, then write why she opened the gate.

Assessment

Look for: Says the pigs did nothing when the door was only a little open. Says the pigs moved when Megan shouted. Says the same thing happens at more than one door. Says Megan opened the gate because she thought the pigs were stupid.

Names one thing the pigs did in the house.

Short version