The Human Alarm Clocks of the 1800s

Learning Intention:

I am learning to improve my reading comprehension by asking and answering text dependent questions in order to increase my perseverance when reading and comprehending challenging text.

 

Success Criteria:

• I can participate in multiple re-readings of the same text looking closely at text, paragraph, sentence and word level choices.
• I can locate specific information to respond to questions requiring literal responses.
• I can ask questions of the text so that I can make sense of the text.
• I can answer questions of the text using the evidence provided in the text.
• I can share my opinions and back my interpretation of the text with evidence from the text.

 

1st Reading:

• Read the title of the article and examine the accompanying illustration and photographs. What do you predict the article may be about?
• Read the article:
• What is the text about?
• What is the purpose of this text?
• What information in the text did you find surprising?
• Locating specific information:
• What occurred that changed the way people measured time?
• What impact did this change have on local rhythms and traditions of telling time?
• What job was created out of these changes?

 

2nd Reading:

• The article begins with the following rhetorical question:
• Have you ever wondered how people woke up in time for school before alarm clocks were invented?
• What impact does posing this question have on readers? (It piques their interest and makes them ponder something they may not have considered previously)
• Another rhetorical question is used later in the article:
• So how did people who worked in factories wake up at a specific time when watches and clocks were too expensive, and being late for work often meant losing your job and becoming poor and homeless?
• Why has this rhetorical question been used? (To emphasise how important it became to wake up on time and to make readers question something they may not have considered previously)
• What impact does this have on readers? (It generates interest and engagement)
• Examine each of the subheadings:
• In the beginning
• Better late than never
• Keeping track of time
• Knock knock
• Which of these subheadings allow readers to infer the type of information that might be included in the section? (In the beginning, keeping track of time)
• Which are more ambiguous? (Better late than never, Knock know)
• Why do you think different types of subheadings have been used? (For variety and to generate interest)
• Examine the type of sentence that have been used in the article. Locate at least one of each of the following types:
• A complex sentence (Since prehistoric times, people have measured time, sometimes by simply looking at where the sun was in the sky, sometimes with sundials or hourglasses and other time-keeping instruments.)
• A compound sentence (They were used in the towns’ clock towers and would ring every hour.)
• A simple sentence (This became known as the Industrial Revolution.)
• Which type of sentence has been used most in the article? (Complex sentences)
• Why do you think this type of sentence features most often? (As the article is aimed at readers in Year 6 who are sophisticated readers)

 

3rd Reading:

• Why has the author included information about what life was like before human alarm clocks were used? (For comparison)
• Examine the illustration on page 11. What can you infer about what life in the factories might have been like for the workers? (It would have been busy, loud and dangerous)
• Examine the inscription on the clock in the photograph on page 10 (Memory is time). What do you think this means? (Memories are created through time)
• Consider the following sentence:
• With thirty or more houses, a knocker-upper could make two pounds a week—that’s close to four-hundred dollars in today’s money!
• Why has the author converted the money into the amount it would be worth today? (To make the amount relevant to readers)
• Read the following sentence:
• Time no longer ‘passed’ but was ‘kept’.
• Why has the author drawn the distinction between time passing and being kept? (To demonstrate the difference in attitudes from before and after the advent of factories)
• What does this mean to you? (Time is no longer to be whiled away and instead must be observed and followed)
• The author has used a number of exclamation marks in the article. For example:
• The first clocks were invented around seven hundred years ago, but they could only tell the hours, not the minutes and seconds, and had no clock face and no alarm!
• Enter the knocker-upper!
• With thirty or more houses, a knocker-upper could make two pounds a week—that’s close to four-hundred dollars in today’s money!
• At first, knocker-uppers would knock loudly or ring at their customer’s door, but they soon realised neighbours on either side of the paying customers’ doors were also getting woken up, but for free!
• A good knocker-upper would not leave until the occupant had proven they were awake by coming to the door or the window—no snooze buttons in those days!
• What can we infer by the author’s use of exclamation marks about their thoughts and opinions on the topic? (It reveals the ideas the author finds interesting or exciting or that they assume readers will)
• Could you reword the sentences to express the author’s point of view in another way?
• For example: The first clocks were invented around seven hundred years ago, but they could only tell the hours, not the minutes and seconds, and can you believe they had no clock face and no alarm.