Page 74 - SpringBoard_CloseReading_Workshop_Grade7_Flipbook

Check your Understanding
1. Choose six words from the vocabulary. They can be words you have circled or
words that are already underlined or bolded. Paraphrase the definitions to show your understanding. Then choose two or three of the words you have examined that you think are significant to understanding the text and use those words in sentences as part of a summary explaining the central ideas in the text.
Third Reading: Text-Dependent Questioning
Reread the passage a third time and respond to the Key Ideas and Details questions. Write your responses to each question and highlight or underline the textual evidence that supports your answer.
Nonfiction Book
From A Short Walk Around the Pyramids and Through the World of Art By Philip Isaacson
1 This is a place called Saqqara. It is on the edge of a great desert an hour’s drive from Cairo. You could reach it by camel, but that would take much longer. As you approach Saqqara, a line of walls and a strange pyramid rise from the sand like a golden mirage. But they are not a mirage. They are among the oldest works of art in the world. They were built more than 4,600 years ago by an Egyptian king with a wonderful imagination. His name was Zoser.
2 The pyramid that came from Zoser’s imagination—with help from his architect, Imhotep—is called the Step Pyramid. It is made of pieces of stone stacked to form six huge steps. Its sides were once covered by a layer of white limestone that transformed it into a star, dazzling in the pure desert air. The Step Pyramid was the first pyramid ever built. Although it is such a simple, logical shape, no one before Zoser and Imhotep had ever thought of it, and when it was finished, those steps climbing high above the desert must have caused hearts to pump with surprise and fear. They still do.
3 The Step Pyramid, which may have been King Zoser’s tomb, inspired other Egyptian rulers to build even larger pyramids. At Giza, a few miles north of Saqqara, sit three great pyramids, each named for the king—or Pharaoh—during whose reign it was built. No other buildings are so well known, yet the first sight of them sitting in their field is breathtaking. When you walk among them, you walk in a place made for giants. They seem too large to have been made by human beings, too perfect to have been formed
key ideas and deTails
What are some examples of figurative language that Isaacson uses to describe the pyramids in ways that are exaggerated or aren’t literally true?
key ideas and deTails
What are some other reasons that Isaacson feels the pyramids stand out as remarkable works of art?
Close Reading Workshop 5 • Close Reading of Informational Texts in Social Studies/History 73
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