Nonfiction Reading Comprehension Bundle Part II

Nonfiction texts can be fascinating and fun yet still provide a rigorous academic experience! This reading comprehension bundle is correlated with the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts in grades nine and ten. However, its contents are appropriate for grades nine through twelve. Its no prep printables are easy to use in homeschooling. It includes the following at a 20% discount off the price of purchasing each resource separately.

• The Black Death
• The Church of Bones
• Mount Vesuvius
• Cathedrals Carved in Salt

File Type: Zip (Non-Digital/ Requires Printing)

Passage Content:

Each passage contains comprehension questions and a writing assignment. This bundle also contains 44 vocabulary words along with four vocabulary reviews and quizzes. Rubrics and keys are provided. (File Type: Zip)

1) The Black Death

Examples of the 13 Vocabulary Words: articulate, enigma, epidemiology, eradicate

Excerpt

Scientists concur that a contagion, the disease-producing organism, Yersinia pestis, brought about those deaths. This community of lethal microbes had thrived for millennia within the rodent populations, the rats and marmots of Asia. Now it had awakened with a savagery unimaginable to its future victims. Like other of the world’s massive outbreaks of illnesses, scientists consider these occurrences epidemics. However, this disease refused to remain confined to one area or community. Instead, it spread across Europe and Asia, evolving into a pandemic, one which caused the deaths of nearly 1.5 million people in Europe alone.

2) The Church of Bones

Examples of the 10 Vocabulary Words: embellish, laudable, obscure, perceptive

Excerpt:

Although riddles lurk all around us, perhaps the most amazing is our brain’s ability to create new thoughts. The writer, Charles Q. Choi, reveals the power within this three-pound organ. “The human brain possesses about 100 billion neurons with roughly 1 quadrillion — 1 million billion — connections known as synapses wiring these cells together.”

To most humans, it seems thoughts pop into our heads, but the opposite is true. They emerge from neural activities too complex to comprehend. Scientists have limited knowledge of how our brains create new thoughts. It is also unclear why each person’s perception of reality differs from those of others.

3) Mount Vesuvius: When Giants Roamed the Earth

Examples of the 10 Vocabulary Words: asphyxiation, seismologist, tephra, undulate

Excerpt

Mount Vesuvius had no recorded history of seismic activity before A.D. 79. Today, geologists provide evidence that the mountain has experienced eight major eruptions. During the Old Bronze Age, around 3,780 years ago, the Avellino Eruption occurred. It was twice as powerful as the one that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. Thousands of miles of fertile land became barren. The earth became a desert, one uninhabitable for two-hundred years. Footprints embedded in ancient mudflows provide evidence left by its helpless victims. 

4) Underground Cathedrals Carved in Salt

Examples of the 11 Vocabulary Words: catharsis, labyrinthine, subterraneous

Excerpt

However, about six million years ago, the earth’s tectonic plates shifted. This dramatic movement caused the strait to remain closed for ½ million years. Water from the Atlantic could no longer flow through the channel to refill the sea’s basin. As the Mediterranean waters evaporated, the seabed became similar to a salt desert. It contained deposits of halite reaching 2,500 feet deep into the earth. To imagine that depth, consider that the Statue of Liberty is only 305 feet and the Eiffel Tower only 984 feet tall.