Unit 1: Mysteries in BC History
The Gentleman Bandit
Reading Strategy
In the last chapter, you learned a pre-reading strategy called Predict. You looked at the title, pictures, and words from the story to guess what it was about.
In this chapter, you will use a pre-reading strategy called Question. Asking questions about the topic in the reading helps stir up our interest. When we read with questions in mind, it helps us make sense of what we read.
Here are some question words:
Try this
1. Find The Gentleman Bandit in your reader. Look at the title and pictures. Use a dictionary to look up any words in the title that you do not know. What is the subject of the reading?
2. Ask your instructor for the Question sheet, or open and print one from the link.
3. Under I wonder…, make a list of five questions you have about this subject.
Example: What was the bandit’s real name? What did he steal? Did he get caught?
Word Attack Strategy
Word Patterns
Sometimes when you get stuck on a big word, it helps to look for smaller words inside of the big word.
- Gentleman is a big word. But it is made up of two smaller words: gentle and man. We can guess what the word means by looking at its parts. A man who is gentle might be a man who treats people in a nice way.
- Railroad is another big word. But it is made up of two smaller words too: rail and road. We can guess what the word means by looking at its parts. A road with rails on it might be a train track.
Sometimes two words describe just one thing.
- Prison fence is made of two words that describe just one thing.
Split these big words into smaller words
Then guess what they might mean. Match the word to each picture.
1. newspaper
2. campfire
3. gunfight
| a | b | c |
Match each set of two words to just one picture
4. train bandit
5. wanted poster
6. passenger car
7. police officer
8. British Columbia
| d | e | f | g | h |
Use Your Strategies
Read The Gentleman Bandit in your reader. Look for the answers to your questions as you read.
Try this
When you have finished reading, write down the answers in your Question chart, under I learned…
Check Your Understanding
Put these events from Bill Miner’s life in the right order
1. His friends dug a hole under the prison fence.
2. He came to British Columbia.
3. He robbed a train near Kamloops.
4. He escaped back to the United States.
5. He robbed a train near Mission.
6. He only made $15.50.
7. The police put him in prison.
8. He got $7,000 in gold.
Grammar
Grammar Rule
The simple past tense is used to talk about events that started and ended in the past (yesterday, last night, three days ago).
Most simple past verbs are formed by adding –ed to a verb.
Example: On a September day in 1904, a CPR train stopped outside of Mission.
The verb in this sentence is stop. To make it a simple past verb, we add an –ed ending.
Copy these sentences and circle the simple past verbs
1. In the days before cars, people and goods travelled long ways on horses and trains.
2. Bill needed t