Seaman Novel Study Questions (The Dog Who Explored with Lewis and Clark)

Are you studying Westward Expansion? This product would be a great addition to your unit! This is a packet of discussion questions for the novel, Seaman. Seaman is a novel about a dog that traveled out West with Lewis and Clark to discover the Pacific Ocean.

It would be a great way to enhance Social Studies standard: SS4H6 The student will explain westward expansion of America between 1801 and 1861 as well as cover the Common Core Literature standards for grades 3-5.

This packet includes 6 questions per chapter. The questions are open-ended, which will require your students to provide more than a one-word answer. They will be asked to give supporting evidence from the text. The novel has 15 chapters, so that's 90 open-ended questions!

How can you use these questions? You can use these in many ways: literature circles, chapter assessments, ticket out the door, literary stations, small groups, or a mystery question jar. The mystery question jar is something I tried. Each day, we pulled 2-3 questions out of the jar from the previous chapter to discuss as a class.

Each set of questions comes with an answer key too!

I also included a blank calendar. I had my students read some on their own. I gave each a calendar so they would know which chapters to read before class. They also used the calendar as a ‘bookmark’ and kept it in their book!

At the end, I provided some blank question strips if you would like to add questions of your own.