Some Painful Truth
​Vicki Cobb

​Vicki is in the kitchen again - and she's still not cooking!  This time she has us tasting hot stuff with our ARMS!  Kids are going to love this fun way to explore their senses and learn a little chemistry and biology along the way.  Shh...don't tell them they're learning!

English/Language Arts
Explore lead sentences - questions

• Add this Minute to your list of articles that start with questions.  Compare it to others Minutes that use questions as leads.  How are they the same?  How are they different?
  

​Explore Voice

• Notice Author Cobb starts out with questions addressed directly to her reader - 2nd person.  In the next paragraph, she switches to 3rd person in order to provide some quick informational schema to set up her experiment.  Then, boom!  She;s back to a conversation directly with the reader.  Point out these “voice” changes to your students and have them talk about how they work.  Ask students to start noticing what kind of “voice” an author is using in what kinds of texts.  See if you can find some patterns.
  

​Explore Text Structure

• This Minute uses a lot of sequential or procedural structure.  Science writing often utilizes sequential or procedural format.  Have your students discuss how this structure relates to the scientific genre of nonfiction writing.​

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STEM
Explore biology - the senses

• Read this Minute to have students think about “taste” as one of their processing senses.  How does taste work?  Have your students reproduce the experiment Author Cobb describes.  Can they “taste” the hot sauce with their wrist?  If you can “feel” it, is spicy actually a taste, or is it a touch sense?

​Explore chemistry

• Author Cobb covers some chemistry in this Minute - and the reason your mouth is so sensitive to some of them.  Can students find information on other chemicals that are highly soluble?  What about chemicals that are insoluble?  Why might it be important to know?

FCS/Nutrition
Explore the benefits of spicy foods

• Many cultures favor spicy foods.  Are they good for us?  Do some research and see what you can find!

Research Skills
Explore keyword searching

• What keywords get you the best answers to your questions?  Have students race to find the answers to some of the following questions:
  
  • Where in the world are hot peppers grown?
    
  • What kinds of foods or spices, besides peppers, are spicy?
    
  • What cultures or countries tend to favor spicier food choices?
    
  • Is there a connection between the cultural food choices and the geographical location?
• What questions can your students come up with?

© Karen Sterling, 2017 - May be used for educational purposes without written permission