The Reading Teacher's Sourcebook - The Meadows Center for ...

Teacher:Now I am going to look at each animal and place a plus sign if the animal exhibits thefeature, a minus sign if the animal does not exhibit the feature, and a question mark if I’mnot sure (Stahl, 1999). Watch as I think through the first mammal on our list. The firstmammal is a bear. I know that bears have hair and are vertebrates. I also know they live onland, not in the sea. Bears definitely don’t fly. I know that bears eat meat, but they also eatplants and berries, so I am going to put a plus sign under “Omnivore”. Bears don’t havepouches, so they are not marsupials. But they do produce milk to feed their young.Figure 67. Creating a Semantic Feature Analysis Grid: Step 3.Concept: MammalsFeaturesExamplesHas hairVertebrateLives on land(terrestrial)Lives at sea(aquatic)Able to flyHerbivore(primaryconsumer)Carnivore(secondaryconsumer)Bear + + + – – – – + – +BatLionSealKangarooWhaleFerretHumanOmnivoreMarsupialProduces milkCall on students individually to come up to the board or overhead and fill in one animal at a time. Discussanswers with the whole class.160The Reading Teacher’s Sourcebook