Sharks (InfoActive) by David Drew

Sharks (Grades 2–3)

InfoActive series

by David Drew

What are sharks? Are all sharks dangerous? Where and why do sharks attack people?

Most of the information in this book is provided visually, as photographs, diagrams, tables, graphs and flow charts.

Grade level 2–3

Visual literacy

Scale diagrams (p. 5–7): to show largest and smallest sharks

Block diagram (p. 8): to locate shark habitats, such as coast lines, deep oceans and rivers

Table (p. 9): to compare the diets of great whites, sawsharks, and whale sharks

Word wheels (pp. 10, 15): to list the seven senses sharks have; to list reasons for shark attacks

Flow chart (p. 10): to explain how sharks sense their prey

Photographs: to identify some dangerous sharks

Pie graphs (pp. 11, 12): to show how few sharks are dangerous

Bar graph (p. 12): to compare shark attacks at different times of year

Line graph (p. 13): to compare shark attacks at different times of day

Map: to show regions of the world where sharks attack

Subject areas

English/Language Arts

Features of reference books, including information reports and explanations

Science/Technology

Marine food chains

Shark species and habitats

The senses

Mathematics

Using a scale to estimate and measure

Interpreting a bar graph, line graph, and pie graph

Social Studies/Geography

Safety in the water

Protection of endangered animals such as the great white shark

Learning strategy

Research procedures

Samples from the book:

Scale diagram

A scale diagram allows children to estimate details such as the shark's tail ("a meter across") or its jaws ("as long as my arm").

Bar graph

This bar graph shows how often sharks attack at different times of the year. Ask children to recompose this text in sentences: "Sharks attack most often ... It is rare for sharks to attack ... It is about 6 times more likely that ..." and so on

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Ideas to get you started:

Tell the children that they can do quality research by looking at diagrams, photographs and visual texts.
Choose a visual text like the diagram of the great white shark above.
Write down some sentences that are true of the diagram, such as, "the great white is about three times bigger than a human. Its top fin is a meter long."
Working in pairs (each pair with a copy of the book) the children make notes in sentence form using other diagrams in the book. You can allocate different diagrams to different groups, so that all pages in the book are researched.
Children display their findings for others to see.
Working individually and using the displayed notes as a reference, children can write on any one of these topics:
- Not all sharks are the same (Information report)
- Why sharks attack (Explanation)
- Most sharks are harmless (Argument/Persuasion)
Provide children with examples of reports, explanations or arguments. These can be photocopied from the Information Toolkit.