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Getting Dirty!: DIRECTIONS: Read Each Passage and Identify How The Information Is Being Organized
Getting Dirty!: DIRECTIONS: Read Each Passage and Identify How The Information Is Being Organized
Getting Dirty!: DIRECTIONS: Read Each Passage and Identify How The Information Is Being Organized
Text Structure
Getting Dirty!
DIRECTIONS: Read each passage and identify how the information is being organized.
A. Cause & Effect B. Sequence/Process C. Problem/Solution D. Compare/Contrast
There are different layers of soil, called “horizons”. The top horizon, or layer, is called top soil. It
is dark brown, very loose, has very few rocks, and contains a lot of hummus, which is
decomposed organic matter. Subsoil, just below the top soil, is lighter in color, packed more
tightly, and contains less hummus and more rocks. Unlike the top horizon, the very bottom
1. horizon, which rests on bedrock, contains no hummus at all, is very compact, and is full of rocks.
Plants need nutrients in the soil to grow. But where do these nutrients come from? They are
what is left of Mother Nature’s recycling program. When plants and animals in the forest die
and fall to the ground, fungi and bacteria begin to decompose them. This process can take a
long time, but what is left once the recycling clue has finished is new soil, full of the nutrients
that once composed the no longer living plant or animal, and ready to nourish a new
2. generation.
Where does dirt come from? Here’s an example. When a tree falls in the forest, a crew of decomposers
shows up to help break it down. The first to arrive are the fungi, which include mushrooms and molds.
Different kinds of molds appear on and spread over the tree, eventually breaking it down. The second
to arrive are the bacteria, and different kinds of bacteria eat different nutrients in the tree. This process
takes a very long time (it can take years), but eventually the decomposed tree becomes part of the soil
3. on the forest floor.