Question

Your class recently visited an animal petting zoo. At one special exhibit, two animals had become good friends even though they were two different types of animals. Your class begins to wonder if this happens with other animals. You decide to do some more research. You have found three sources. Your class decides to make a storybook to share with the animal petting zoo and the people who visit the zoo. You will write a story to add to the storybook.

You have decided to write a story about a boy or girl who already has a pet and is now getting a different type of pet. Write about what happens when the two pets come together for the first time. When writing your story, find ways to use information and details from the sources to improve your story. Make sure you develop your character(s), the setting, and the plot, using details, dialogue, and description.

As you write, think about these questions:

Did you write a narrative about the assigned topic?
Did you use details to describe the characters, places, and events?
Did you organize your narrative clearly with a beginning, middle, and end?
Did you use a variety of words and well-written sentences?
Did you use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation?
5 paragraphs


Source One
Can We Be Friends?
By Ellen R. Braaf
What Is a Friend?

Biologist Dr. Marc Bekoff at the University of Colorado studies dogs, wolves, and coyotes. Although human friendships differ from animal friendships, Bekoff believes that many animals do have friends. What are the signs of animal friendship? If they're in the same pack, animal friends may sleep close to one another. They greet one another, travel together, share food, and groom each other. Animal friends are nice to one another. They even play together. This friendly behavior can be important to an animal's survival.

Playing together, for instance, helps forge important social bonds* that keep an animal within the safety of the group. “Coyote pups who don’t play much are less tightly bonded to other members of their group and are more likely to strike out on their own,” says Bekoff. Leaving the protection of the group is dangerous. In his seven-year study of coyotes in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, Bekoff found that 60 percent of the youngsters who left the group failed to survive.

For more than 35 years, Dr. Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has studied primates—animals such as apes and monkeys. He, too, believes friendship plays a role in understanding how these animals interact.

How does de Waal define friendship? “Friendship involves liking, loyalty, and common purpose,” he says. “I know two female chimpanzees who 30 years ago were already close friends. They lived in a zoo group in the Netherlands with more than 25 chimpanzees. Last year I visited and noticed that they were still friends, still grooming each other, helping each other in fights, and so on. Loyalty!”

Why do animals have friends? “Mainly because in the long run they benefit from friendships,” de Waal says. “It is all give and take. Sometimes

Answer 1

Maya had loved Jasper since the day she met him at the shelter — his fur was the color of warm honey, and he always greeted her with a sloppy, cheerful wag. On her ninth birthday she got a new pet, a small gray rabbit named Clover, and she carried her home cradled like a secret. The house smelled like cedar shavings and wet grass; sunlight slanted across the living room where Jasper liked to nap. At school Maya had learned from Dr. Marc Bekoff that animals show friendship by greeting one another, playing together, sharing food, and sometimes even grooming. She remembered Dr. Frans de Waal’s words too: friendship involves liking, loyalty, and a common purpose. Maya felt both excited and nervous as she thought about what might happen when Jasper and Clover finally met.

Her parents closed the door and sat on the couch while Maya set Clover down on a soft blanket. Jasper padded over slowly, ears low and tail wagging in a careful rhythm. “Be gentle,” Maya whispered, and watched as Jasper lowered his nose to Clover’s twitching nose. They sniffed each other for a long, important minute — a polite animal hello. Clover’s whiskers trembled but she didn’t bolt; Jasper stayed calm, eyes soft. Maya felt her heart knock against her ribs the way it did when she watched them sniffing each other, like two new friends saying their names for the first time.

At first they only did small things together. Jasper lay down so Clover could hop around him; Clover binkied and darted in short loops, and Jasper followed at a safe, slow pace. Maya held two carrot sticks and set them on the blanket; the rabbit and dog sat side by side, nibbling quietly until their noses bumped. It looked a lot like the "sharing food" Bekoff had described in class. Later, as the afternoon light thinned, Jasper gave Clover a gentle lick on the top of her head — his version of grooming — and Clover nuzzled his ear back. Maya grinned and said, “See? They’re playing and grooming. That’s how friends stick together.” She thought of the coyotes Dr. Bekoff studied and how play helped young animals stay bonded and safe; she didn’t want either of her pets to feel alone.

The evening thunder surprised them both. Clover trembled under the blanket and Jasper sprang up, pressing his warm side against her. He nosed the blanket until Clover tucked in closer, and then he lay down, protecting her with his body. Maya remembered de Waal’s idea of loyalty and smiled — Jasper was being loyal without thinking about it. Over the next few weeks they learned to travel together through the yard, Jasper keeping an eye out while Clover explored under the low shrubs. Maya wrote down what she saw for her class storybook: how they greeted, played, shared treats, groomed each other, and slept close. It felt like watching the rules of friendship she had read about come to life in her living room.

By the time the school field trip visited the petting zoo again, Maya had a little story to tell about home. Jasper and Clover were proof that two very different animals could become friends, not because they were the same, but because they chose to be kind and to stay near each other. Maya put a picture of them in her notebook — Clover curled against Jasper’s shoulder as he dozed — and thought of the animals Dr. de Waal had watched for years who groomed and helped one another. She knew friendships might look different for every creature, but the signs were the same: greeting, play, sharing, and loyalty. When visitors read Maya’s story in the zoo’s new storybook shelf, she hoped they would leave thinking about how friendship can blossom between the most unlikely pairs.