Reading - Mariana Trench

Today in reading we explored how using what we already know can help us to make sense of texts.  We read the passage below first and found it quite tricky.

Exploring New Regions
Our craft, Trieste, is finally nearing the unworldly surface. It seems like forever that we've been drifting through the darkness, but at last we can make out the small hills and valleys on the surface below. 
On this journey we hope to encounter living things, but around our craft there isn't yet any sign of life. 

 Then we re-read the text with this new title.

Exploring the Ocean's Depths 
Our craft, Trieste, is finally nearing the unworldly surface. It seems like forever that we've been drifting through the darkness, but at last we can make out the small hills and valleys on the surface below. 
On this journey we hope to encounter living things, but around our craft there isn't yet any sign of life. 

Suddenly we could make more sense of the words because of what we already knew about oceans and crafts that go under the ocean!  We discussed that this is called using our PRIOR KNOWLEDGE.  We were all really interested to learn that this passage was about the Mariana Trench. In fact we were so interested in the Mariana Trench that we watched a couple of videos about it and googled some information.  Here are a couple of videos about the Trench.

Now we know about using what we already know AND we know about the Mariana Trench!!!