De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Nature's Violet Children [Pdf]

"Nature's Violet Children" is a one page, folktale about violets who were sad because a little girl picked them and took them home. It is followed by open-ended questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes: determining the lesson learned and underlining the parts of the story that support it. This passage aligns with Common Core Anchor Reading Standards 1 requiring close reading, textual evidence, main idea, and summarizing.