Lesson Plan: Frozen Dreams

Essential Questions

• How is history written? Who gets recognition? Who is overlooked?
• Why do humans have an urge to explore?
  

Literature Connection

• Novel: Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

Build Background Knowledge (10 minutes)

Have students view our Background Builder Slideshow, which will provide context for Matthew Henson’s story and help readers understand the obstacles he faced.

Preview Text Features (15 minutes)

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

• Read the title and the subtitle, and look at the image at the beginning of the story. Who was Matthew Henson? What does the author suggest about him in the subtitle? (Hint: Notice how she uses the word discover twice.) Matthew Henson was someone who helped discover the North Pole. The author seems to suggest that people didn’t learn about his accomplishment until much later.
• Look at the sidebar “If You’d Been an Arctic Explorer . . .” Based on the title and the images, what do you think the purpose of the sidebar is? It seems like the purpose of the sidebar is to tell readers about the lives of Arctic explorers: what they ate and drank, where they slept, how they got around, what they wore, and how their fingers froze.
• Look at the map near the end of the article and read its caption. Where did the Henson and Peary expedition of 1908-1909 begin? Where did it end? How did the explorers travel? The expedition began in New York and ended at the North Pole. The explorers sailed through the Atlantic Ocean, passed Greenland, and then used sleds to trek across the North Pole.

Preview Vocabulary (10 minutes)

• Point out the vocabulary box. Read the words (wilderness, frigid, expedition, determined, accomplishments) aloud and discuss the 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 explaining to students that they will find text evidence in “Frozen Dreams” that supports an important idea about Matthew Henson.
• Point out the Pause and Think boxes. Tell students they can check their understanding of what they’ve read by answering these questions.
• Point out the activity at the end of the story, and tell students they will complete it after reading. Tell them to keep the Think About It! question in mind as they read.
• 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.
• Guide students to read the article. Once they understand it well, discuss the following close-reading and critical-thinking questions.

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)

• In the first section of the article, who do you meet? What is his goal? What happens to him? (key details) You meet Matthew Henson, an explorer who aims to be one of the first people ever to reach the North Pole. But he falls into the freezing-cold Arctic Ocean and it seems like he may not survive.
• In the first two sections, what details does author Lauren Tarshis include to describe the Arctic? Why do you think she includes them? (author’s craft) Tarshis includes many details about how dangerously cold the Arctic is. For example, in the first paragraph, she uses the words “ice-covered” and “frozen wilderness.” Later, she explains that the Arctic is very cold and stormy. She includes these details to help readers imagine how terribly cold it is and to highlight how brave Henson was to explore this region.
• Based on the section “A Chance Meeting,” what can you infer about what Henson was like? (inference) You can infer that he was smart and had big goals. He was determined to succeed despite the racism he faced. At 13, he took a difficult job as a cabin boy on a ship and learned many skills. Later, he made a connection with Peary and was hired to travel with him.
• The section “New Friends” tells you that Henson made friends with the Inuit. How did these friendships help him and Peary as they tried to reach the North Pole? (cause and effect) Because of these friendships, Henson learned important survival skills from the Inuit. They taught him to hunt, to ice fish, and to drive a dogsled. This knowledge would be key to the success of Henson and Peary’s Arctic exploration.
• What is the central idea of the section “From the Shadows”? (central idea) The central idea is that during his lifetime, Henson did not get the credit he deserved for reaching the North Pole because he was Black. But as times changed and Black Americans fought for equal rights, more people began to recognize his brave and important contributions to Arctic exploration.

Critical-Thinking Questions (10 minutes)

• Why do you think the author chose the title “Frozen Dreams”? How might a dream be frozen? In what way were Henson’s dreams frozen? (author’s craft) The title “Frozen Dreams” can have two meanings: It can refer to Henson’s dreams of reaching a frozen land—the North Pole—or the idea that this dream was almost blocked, or “frozen,” by the racism Henson faced. The author wants readers to understand these two ideas.
• Based on what you read in this story, why do you think it’s important to learn about people who have been left out of history books in the past? (drawing conclusions) Answers may include that it’s unjust that people like Henson have been overlooked because of their race, and that our knowledge of history is not complete if we don’t know who really did important things.

• Have students work in pairs to complete the text evidence activity at the end of the story. As a class, discuss students’ answers and the Think About It! question.
• Use our Central Idea and Details Skill Builder, available in a higher and lower level version. (Click here to see all your Skill Builders.)
• Writing prompt: The article says that Henson made friends with the Inuit and learned skills from them that were unusual for Americans and Europeans to have. Write a journal entry about Henson from the point of view of an Inuit teen who met him. Give your impressions of Henson based on his behavior toward the people of your community.