Lesson Plan: Are Those Aliens?

Essential Questions

• What is the difference between a theory and a proven fact?
• Why are humans so interested in outer space?

Literature Connection

• Novel: Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone by Tae Keller
• Novel: It Came From the Sky by Chelsea Sedoti

Preview Text Features (15 minutes)

Guide students to locate the article. Preview the text features by asking the following questions:

• Read the article’s title and subtitle (the text beneath the title). Do you think there is life on other planets? Why or why not? Answers will vary. On the whiteboard, record the reasons students give for believing there is or isn’t life on other planets.
• Browse through the article’s text features, looking at the pictures, captions, section headers, and sidebar. What do you think this article is about? Sample answer: This article will describe different UFOs people have spotted in the skies and what explanations these sightings might have. It will also give information about aliens in pop culture.
• Look at the sidebar “Aliens Through Time.” How many of the characters featured here do you recognize? Why do you think images of aliens in movies and TV shows are all so different? Answers to the first question will vary. Sample answer for the second question: No one actually knows what aliens look like, so it’s possible to imagine them in many different ways. 

Preview Vocabulary (10 minutes)

• Point out the vocabulary box. Read the words (frenzy, rumors, remote, analyzed, extraterrestrial, astronomers) aloud and discuss their definitions.
• Play the Vocabulary Slideshow.

Make a Plan for Reading

Before students start to read, walk them through a reading plan:

• Set a purpose for reading by telling students that they will find text evidence in “Are Those Aliens?” that supports ideas about people’s interest in space aliens.
• Point out the Pause and Think boxes. Tell students they can check their understanding of what they’ve read by answering these questions.
• Tell students that as they finish each section, they should think about how the text features on the page (e.g., photos, captions, and section headings) relate to what they’ve just read.
• Point out the Think About It! question at the end of the article. Ask students to keep it in mind as they read.

Guide students to read the article. Once they understand it well, discuss the following close-reading and critical-thinking questions.

Close-Reading Questions (20 minutes)

• Reread the first section of the story and the section “The Mystery.” What was strange and mysterious about the objects that Kenneth Arnold saw in the sky? (key details) The objects had shiny surfaces and were flying at 1,200 miles per hour or more. They were “saucer-like” and didn’t have pilots, although they darted and flipped in the air as if they did.
• How does the sidebar “Aliens Through Time” support the idea that people are fascinated by aliens? (text features) The sidebar shows how aliens have been imagined in popular media from 1898 to today. Sometimes the aliens are evil and invade Earth. Sometimes they are sweet and lovable. The fact that so many books, movies, shows, and video games feature aliens shows how much people love reading and watching stories about aliens.
• In the section “UFOs Today,” why do you think the group of government officials didn’t rule out that some UFOs could be extraterrestrial? (inference) The government group didn’t rule out that aliens may be behind some UFOs because we don’t have enough information to explain every single UFO incident. If we can’t prove that a UFO was actually a human aircraft or something else, like a natural event, then it’s possible that the UFO came from outside our planet.
• How does the section “The Mystery Continues” connect with the beginning of the story? (text structure) The first section of the story opens with pilot Kenneth Arnold flying toward Mount Rainier and seeing strange objects in the sky. The section “The Mystery Continues” goes back to what Arnold saw and notes that no official explanation was ever given for the incident. 

Critical-Thinking Question (10 minutes)

• The author says that many people want to believe in aliens, noting that “Four in 10 Americans believe UFOs are extraterrestrial.” Why do you think so many people believe that aliens exist? (inference) Answers will vary. Some students might say that it’s just fun to think that other life-forms exist in the universe. Others might note that experts can’t explain what every UFO might be. Plus, the universe is so big that we can’t possibly explore every corner of it. So there could be aliens living on planets that are too far away for us to study.
• Consider everything you learned in the article about UFOs and the search for alien life. Do you think there is life beyond our planet? Use details from the article in your answer. (drawing conclusions) Answers will vary.

• Have students work in pairs to complete the Spotlight Skill Workout: Text Evidence activity. As a class, discuss students’ answers and the Think About It! question.
• Have students work independently to complete our Central Idea and Details Skill Builder, available in higher- and lower-level versions. (Click here to view all your Skill Builders for this article.)
• Writing prompt: Choose a UFO sighting mentioned in the story and write a news article about it. Your article should include a headline, an illustration of the UFO, and a few paragraphs about what happened. Try to include details from the story and your own imagination. Perhaps include a (made-up) quote from the person who saw the UFO.