In today’s lesson we will be completing mini lesson 3 of persuasive writing and reading chapter summaries from The City of Ember.

In mini lesson 3, you are given sections of a speech by Abraham Lincoln (President of the United States in the 1860s). Your job is to “paraphrase” certain sections of his speech; paraphrase is a fancy word for summarize – they mean the same thing.

So, when you paraphrase, you summarize the important points in your own words (you say what you think the speaker or writer is really saying).

The goal of this lesson is to get you in the habit of identifying the main idea of a piece of persuasive writing. In his speech, Abraham Lincoln is trying to be persuasive – it’s your job to figure out what he is really trying to say. Good Luck.

We will be reviewing the answers to Mini Lesson Two and Three during Friday’s Teams call.

As mentioned above, the second part our lesson is a short reading assignment from our class novel, The City of Ember. Over the course of the next few classes, we’ll be playing “catchup” – where we review everything that has happened so far.

Below you will find a summary of the Introduction, and chapter 1, 2 and 3. Please read them carefully, as we may have an activity involving this information later in the week. Also, you could choose to do this reading activity during your 20 minute reading block in the afternoon.

Finally, as always, I’m available throughout the day if you have any questions. Good Luck!

The Introduction:

The Instructions

As construction of the city of Ember concludes, its chief “Builder” and his assistant discuss the future. They are unsure of what will follow but, without revealing why, determine that the city’s inhabitants need to live there for at least 200 years. So that Ember’s future citizens will know what to do at that time, the chief then reveals a grand plan: They will provide Ember with instructions, sealed inside a box with a timed lock set to open on its own at the right date. Sworn to secrecy, only the city’s mayors, one after the next, will know about the box and its hiding place in Ember’s Gathering Hall. None will know what is inside the box, only that the contents contain critical information for Ember’s people. 

All goes according to the Builders’ plan until an immoral mayor, the city’s seventh, takes possession of the box. Plagued with a coughing sickness, common in Ember at the time, he brings it home, hoping to find a cure that will save him. Although he fails to open the box, he damages it. After the corrupt mayor dies, the box ends up in a closet. The box remains there for generations, until finally clicking open at the programmed time.

Chapter 1: Assignment Day

It’s year 241 and Ember is old, in disrepair, and dark. With no natural light, its only illumination comes from light bulbs and streetlamps. Electricity shuts off nightly, and power outages, which result in blackouts, are common during the day. Children attend school until they are twelve years old. On Assignment Day the children enter the adult workforce. 

At Ember School, Mayor Cole arrives with a bag holding the fate of all twenty-four students in the graduating class: the job they will do for the next three years. Lizzie Bisco stands first and draws Clerk at the Supply Depot, whose underground storerooms contain all of the city’s supplies. Lina Mayfleet disappointedly draws Pipeworks Laborer, which means she will repair pipes below the storerooms. Doon Harrow hopes for Electrician’s Helper so he might fix Ember’s electrical problems and save the city, but he draws the job of Messenger and throws his piece of paper in anger. Scolded by the mayor, Doon rants about the state of Ember with its blackouts and supply shortages. Later, in Harken Square, Doon and Lina trade jobs. As Messenger, Lina gets the job she had first wished for, and Doon feels happy because he will have access to Ember’s generator, which creates electricity from an underground river.

Chapter 2: A Message to the Mayor

Lina runs home, happy about her job, but as she passes unlit streetlamps, feels dread while recalling a rumor about Ember’s dwindling light bulb supply. Lina’s Granny and baby sister, Poppy, are her only family now that her parents have died from the coughing sickness ravaging Ember. Their cluttered apartment above Granny’s yarn shop is decorated with Lina’s drawings of a city filled with light, one born from her imagination despite teachings that beyond Ember, there’s only darkness. 
Later, Lina starts her job as Messenger, reporting to Captain Fleery and delivering messages for Ember’s citizens. Near Garn Square, she passes a group of Believers singing hopeful songs. Later, she delivers a message from Looper Windly, a young man who walks with a lurch, to Mayor Cole in the Gathering Hall. Portraits of Ember’s mayors, including its seventh—her great-great-grandfather, Podd Morethwart—line the walls. As Assistant Guard Barton Snode fetches the mayor, Lina wanders to the roof, hoping to see into the Unknown Regions, but glimpses only blackness while causing a commotion below. After Chief Guard Redge Stabmark catches Lina, the mayor scolds her for trespassing but, upon receiving her message, smiles strangely and decides not to punish her.

Chapter 3: Under Ember

Doon begins his new job at the Pipeworks. Donning an old slicker and boots, he descends a deep, damp stairway leading to the Main Tunnel. There, he encounters Ember’s raging underground river for the first time and begins to mentally map the Pipeworks’s vast, labyrinthine layout. At its west edge, he watches the river vanish into a dark opening in a wall. At its east edge, he sees the chasm from which the river surges into the Pipeworks, along with a locked room housing Ember’s generator. 

While patching pipes, Doon also realizes that Ember is in worse shape than he thought, so he determines to get into the locked room. When he does, though, he discovers that his understanding of how the generator works is as limited as that of his coworkers. Later, Doon’s despondency turns to anger at home, but his father convinces him to stay vigilant at work and pay close attention to everything he sees. And because Doon is fascinated by bugs, his father, Loris, recommends he keep an eye out for interesting insects. But Doon regards this as silly. Doon hopes instead that his work in the Pipeworks will lead him to something that will help save the city.