Endangered Lions by Daniel Hernández

The following book was written by Daniel Hernández, a fifth-grade student in Las Vegas, Nevada, during Clark County School District’s SUMMER SEMESTER. During a four-week program, each student learned how to read, write, and research like a detective, and they became experts on a topic of their choice. The result was a student-authored and -illustrated book.

With highly scaffolded support and modeling, Clark County teachers learned the best practices to make the three instructional shifts of the Common Core State Standards.

Students met the three shifts by:

• Reading daily from complex and informational text to gather information for their projects;

• Building background knowledge and academic vocabulary from thematic book collections;

• Writing daily using evidence from text as they drafted, revised, edited, and published their own nonfiction books.

American Reading Company was so impressed with the research and work that Daniel Hernández put into creating his book, Endangered Lions, the company awarded him $500 to publish it. Daniel’s book will be added to the Wild & Endangered Animals thematic library collection.

Daniel's illustrations and words were kept as close to the original writing as possible. After creating this book, Daniel wrote the winning essay that won his school 1,000 tickets to see The Lion King. CCSD students in Grades 1–5 were encouraged to write a short essay, “Why My School Should Go to The Lion King,” for the opportunity to see the show before its final performance.

About the Author

"I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. I go to Walter V. Long and I am a new 5th grader. I chose the lion for this book because lions are amazing creatures of strength and protection. I wrote this book in summer school and I haven’t done anything like this. I enjoy drawing, swimming, bicycling, surfing the web, and building with Legos. Thanks to the research for this book, I won the Lion King essay writing contest. As a reward, I earned tickets for my whole school to see The Lion King live."