Controlling Idea and Supporting Evidence

Every year in Hollywood, there is a contest for people who perform stunts. The contest has 3 main events. In the horse event, the stunt people must make their horses fall. They can jump on their horses and race down a long trail. In the motorcycle event, people race eight laps around a dirt track. In the last event, they race around the dirt track in cars.

• How Hollywood gets money.

• How motorcycles are raced.

• What a stunt contest is like.

• When dirt track racing began.

Playing football was once against the law. In England, King Henry II thought that his soldier weren't practicing with their bows and arrows. He blamed football and declared that people who played the game would be thrown to prison.

• How English people liked football.

• When football was against the law.

• When King Henry II made announcement.

• How bows and arrows were used in war.

You dream each night, event though you may not remember your dreams. Some scientist think that dreaming is important to our health. They claim that without dreams, people would go crazy.

• How people stay healthy.

• How sleep is necessary.

• Why dreams are important.

• When people remember dreams.

Experts know that people have "clocks" inside their bodies. The clock divides time into 24 hours. Jet lag, or feeling tired and grumpy after traveling, is a result of upsetting that inner clock.

• What human inner clocks are like.

• Human clocks are the same has clocks in real life.

• Being jet lag means feeling tired.

• Don't upset the inner clock.

One night during World War II, a duck in a city park in Freiburg, Germany, began squawking and flapping its wings. The duck had done this once before when bombs were dropped. This time people heard the duck and ran for cover. Soon the bombing began.

• How a duck squawked and flapped its wings.

• How a duck saved a city from bombing.

• The results of World War II.

• How a duck helped win World War II.

Cooperstown, New York was the chosen site to hold the Baseball Hall of Fame where Abner Doubleday said that he invented the game in 1839. But, baseball began in England. It started from a game called rounders. The word baseball is mentioned in English books as early as 1798.

• Baseball Hall of Fame.

• How Abner Doubleday discovered baseball.

• How baseball got it's name.

• Where baseball started.

Dogs act as helpers for humans. Dogs help the blind to travel independently. When there is a fire, dogs can sniff trouble. If there is a burglar, they can bark and scare robbers away.

• Why dogs make great pets.

• The different ways dogs can help humans.

• Why the blind need dogs in their lives.

• How dogs can make humans happy.

The Venus flytrap has leaves that open to catch prey and then snap shut once it’s ready to eat. On the inside of each leaf there are short, stiff hairs called trigger hairs. When an insect touches one of the three trigger hairs on either side of the leaf twice in a row, it signals to the flytrap that dinner is here. The leaves then snap shut, trapping the insect inside. Of course, some insects are able to escape, but many don’t.

• Why Venus flytraps catches insects.

• How a Venus flytrap catches its prey.

• The different parts of a Venus flytrap.

• Where Venus flytraps are typically founded.