4th Grade ELA Screener

In some Scottish fishing villages in the nineteenth century, the production of smoked haddock, a popular fish, was a family affair.Before the fishermen went out for the day's catch, their wives carried the men on their shoulders from the docks to the boats. This way, the men wouldn't get wet before they faced a long day at sea.While the men fished for haddock, the second job of the fishwives, as they were called, was to prepare hundreds of hooks for the next trip. The women and their daughters would bait the hooks while a previous catch was being prepared. The haddock were prepared by a process called smoking. The fish were hung on poles across pits that were dug into the beaches or the sides of cliffs. The women built fires in the pits and placed empty sacks over the pits to capture the smoke. Sometimes, the smoke from the pits would guide the fishermen home from sea.Often, the wives sold the smoked fish at markets. They had to get to the markets on foot, sometimes walking as many as twenty miles. When the fishing was done and the men had followed the trail of smoke home, the wives would show their appreciation for the new catch by meeting the boats and carrying their husbands back to shore. 1. How do you know this is a nonfiction text?

• The characters are too extraordinary to be real.
• The passage has the qualities of a legend.
• Scottish fishing villages are fictional.
• Actual places, practices, and people are described.