Skill: write-like-james @ efd8fba · the build: write-lesson, write-mcqs, write-video-script, review-lesson (two blind reads and a re-read), review-figures, review-accuracy @ efd8fba
Topic 22 "What happens in an earthquake" — your read (2 October 2026)
Skim first
The lessons in teaching order, each with its one rule sentence; then the intro script; then the question types. The review page follows.
The lessons and their rules
| Lesson | Atom | Rule sentence |
|---|---|---|
| L01 What is under the ground: Earth's rocky crust | EAR4-045 | The ground is the top of Earth's rocky shell. That shell is called the crust. The soil is only a thin layer on top. |
| L02 How the shaking spreads out as waves | EAR4-046 | An earthquake starts where rock deep in the crust suddenly slips. The shaking spreads out through the crust as waves. So the ground shakes far from where the rock slipped. |
| L03 Which defense protects better? Test both the same way | EAR4-047 | Give both defenses the same shaking test. The design with less damage protects better. Only the test tells; how it looks does not. |
The intro script (98 words, about 49 s)
Here's Kendra in the school library in Oklahoma. The lamps swing, the books wobble, and the floor hums for about twenty seconds. Then it stops. Later, the news says the earthquake started under a town a hundred miles away. But what is under the floor that shook? And how did the shaking travel a hundred miles to the library? To find out, we will look at the rock under the ground, how the shaking spreads out, and how to test which building design protects better. Okay, so are you ready to find out what happens in an earthquake?
The question types (from TYPES_G4T22.md)
- Type 1 (easy · MCQ, the what-is-under set · 045): what is under a named place once the soil (or ice, or water) ends — rock / soil all the way down / water all the way down / empty space
- Type 2 (easy · MCQ · 045): which of four things in one scene is part of Earth's crust — one rock thing and three things that sit on it (water, air, snow, fog, seaweed, bats)
- Type 3 (easy, medium · MCQ · 045): how thick, how far down, which is thickest; whether a depth is still inside the crust — four depths / four thicknesses / four statements
- Type 4 (easy · MCQ, the where-it-starts set · 046): where an earthquake starts — where rock deep in the crust suddenly slips / wind / deepest soil / deepest sea
- Type 5 (easy, medium · MCQ, the how-it-got-there set · 046): how the shaking reached a far place; whether a slip under the sea can reach the coast — as waves through the crust / the ground slid / the air carried it / a crack ran there
- Type 6 (medium · MCQ, drawn map · 046): on a map with the star where the rock slipped, which town shakes harder or more gently — Town / Town / both the same / the town with more houses
- Type 7 (medium, hard · MCQ, drawn traces (Topic 8's wave panel, drawn as an ink line) · 046): which seismograph line was drawn nearer / farthest from the slip — the lines / same distance / cannot tell
- Type 8 (medium · MCQ · 046): the correct reason the far town shakes gently; what the ground at a farm has done; which of two traces means harder shaking; what cracked a wall with no crack in the ground — four single statements
- Type 9 (medium · MCQ, drawn results table · 047): which design protects better (one clear winner; an unfair test → cannot tell); what an equal result shows (no difference) — Design / Design / both the same / you cannot tell from this table; for the equal result: J protects better / K protects better / no difference / the test was unfair
- Type 10 (hard · typed · 046): what carried the shaking through the crust — waves, wave, a wave, the waves, the wave, as waves, as a wave, shaking waves, energy waves, waves of energy, wave's, waves through the crust, wavs, wavez, waives, wavse, waevs
- Type 11 (medium · MCQ · 047): which of two DESCRIBED results protects better (no table) — two designs / both the same / you cannot tell
- Type 12 (medium, hard · MCQ, the fair test · 047): which test compares two defenses fairly; a test with unequal times → cannot tell; the ONE thing that must differ; what would tell engineers — four tests / two designs + both + cannot tell / the shaking, the time, the design, the floor / four methods
- Type 13 (hard · MCQ keyed on the term · 045, 046): the shell named from its whole definition; the machine named from what it does — the soil / lava / the crust / sand; a thermometer / a seismograph / a stopwatch / a ruler
- Type 14 (hard · MCQ · 046 / 047): a named child's claim is wrong: what is the correct reason (the catalogued beliefs: the ground travels; the ground swallows things; looks tell; a defense stops the shaking; an unfair test) — four one-clause reasons; three real distractors that half-accept the belief, with varied verbs so the key is not the odd one out; the key never the longest
- Type 15 (hard · MCQ · 047): two steps: two kinds of damage weighed and the better design judged although it too was damaged; a second test changing the result; where the damage comes from deciding what a defense guards against — A / B / both the same / cannot tell; four statements
Three lessons, one per atom. The ground is the top of Earth's hard rocky shell: dig down anywhere, under a street, a field or the sea, and you reach rock, one shell about twenty miles thick under the land, named the crust last. An earthquake starts where rock deep in the crust suddenly slips, and the shaking spreads out through the crust as waves, hard near the slip and gentle far away, while the ground at each town shakes in place. To find which defence protects a building better, give both designs the same shaking test; the one with less damage protects better, and looking at them cannot tell you that. Every key agreed by three cold readers over three bundles; the figure review and the guidance-and-accuracy review are applied; nothing frightening is shown (damage is a cracked wall, a fallen bookshelf, a narrow crack across a road). Pictures are placeholders until you answer.
The questions the author put to you (built as recommended)
1. Should "crust" be typed, or picked from a list of sister words?
"Crust" is the topic's one new word, coined at the end of L01 after four cases.
The brief for this topic asked for it to be picked among soil, lava and sand; the reviewer says a nine-year-old owns a five-letter word, and typing is the stronger recall.
Built: picked from a list, in L01's term item, the practice's and the bank's hard item; the typed form is one switch plus two items (accept crust / the crust / Earth's crust / krust / cruste).
Recommendation: type it.
Type it / keep the list
2. Is "seismograph" a word to keep?
L02 names the machine that draws the ground's shaking as a line, after saying what it does; the word-level check flags it as unusual.
A nine-year-old meets the word in every earthquake news story, and a recognition item (the machine among a thermometer and a stopwatch) now sits before any stem uses it.
Built: kept, with the recognition item in L02 and the practice and a term item in the bank.
Recommendation: keep.
Keep / say only "a machine that draws the shaking as a line"
3. Do L02 (347 words) and L03 (360 words) stand as one article each?
The usual ceiling is about 300 words. L02 carries Topic 8's wave recalled, the slip, the spreading, near and far, the seismograph's line and the cracks; L03 carries the fair-test recap the reviewer asked for.
Each has a figure or a subtitle at least every four lines, and a split would make a fourth lesson for an atom taught at recognition level.
Built: one article each; L02 was trimmed from 379.
Recommendation: keep as one each.
Keep / split L02's seismograph section into its own short lesson
4. Is the seismograph's line a dark ink line, or Topic 8's blue water wave with a caption?
The line is drawn with Topic 8's wave drawing, which in Topic 8 is a blue line with pale water under it.
Both reviews said the water fill misleads: a pen line has no water under it, and the reading (how tall the line is) is the same either way.
Built: a dark pen line on white with the dashed middle line; the water look is kept behind a switch.
Recommendation: the ink line.
Ink line / water look with the caption "drawn the way we drew water waves in Topic 8"
5. Does the Earth ball keep its label "the hot rock below"?
L01 draws Earth as a ball: a thin dark ring for the crust and a pale orange inside labelled "the hot rock below"; the caption says the rock below the shell is very hot.
The layers below the crust are grade 6 to 8's; the label names no layer, but it is one fact beyond the atom, and Topic 18 has already said the rock deep down is so hot that some of it has melted.
Built: kept.
Recommendation: keep.
Keep / cut the label and the caption's sentence
The lessons
6. L01 What is under the ground: Earth's rocky crust. Miss Perez's class at a road cut: a thin band of soil, then grey rock all the way down to the road. Under a street, a field and the sea the answer is the same, and the depth table (soil a few feet; the deepest hole seven miles; the crust twenty miles) comes before the name. page
7. L02 How the shaking spreads out as waves. Kyla's kitchen in Oklahoma shakes for twenty seconds, and her cousin fifty miles away felt it too. Rock deep in the crust slips; the shaking spreads out through the crust as waves; the ground shakes in place; a seismograph's line is tall near the slip and short far away. page
8. L03 Which defense protects better? Test both the same way. Keegan's tower on a wide heavy base and Kendra's tower with braces get the same ten seconds of shaking; three blocks fall from one and none from the other; the one with less damage protects better, and looking could not have told the class that. page
Applied without asking
Two bank items had a second honest answer, and both blind readers caught them: the chimney table where neither design lost a brick now asks what the test shows (no difference), and the dresser item asks the one thing that must differ between the two tests (the design). Six hard claim items had distractors no child would pick; each now carries three wrong reasons a child really might choose, with a key that is never the longest, and the re-read's polish varied their verbs and made one near-true distractor (rubber pads stop the shaking under the building, not around it) plainly false. The seismograph's line had been drawn as a water wave with pale water under it; it is now a dark pen line. The ringed maps now run past the far town, so a town outside the rings no longer gives the key away; Keegan's fallen blocks lie flat on the board. "Crust", "seismograph" and the width of a crack are each taught by an item before any later item leans on them. Topic 2's fair-test sentence is recalled in L03; one line says earthquakes happen in California, Alaska, Oklahoma and many other states; two quiz claims became true ones so the yes-and-no string is mixed; the lessons' own scenes were taken out of the quizzes; the typed "waves" items accept wave, the waves, shaking waves, waves of energy and child spellings. 50 bank items, 14 to 19 per atom; 106 items held by the third reader; eleven picture placeholders with briefs; the five-video batch is built and checked, not sent.
Also on the site
Topic intro and poll · summary and three questions · mixed practice · the PP100 bank · the type sheet
After you answer
Nothing on the page changes if you keep all five. Typing "crust" is one switch plus two items; the water look is one switch; cutting the label is one line and one caption sentence. Either way the picture pass starts, and your notes on the scripts send the five-video batch.
The records, in full
The build record (v1, v2 reviews applied, v3 polish)
Skill: course-build → write-lesson (L01 a concept introduction in the fact form, coining crust last; L02 a process lesson at recognition level, Topic 8's wave recalled; L03 the capstone comparison routine) → write-example-sequence, design-check-sequence, sentence-atomise, write-explanation, write-mcqs (quizzes, attached questions, practice, the PP100 bank and its type sheet); write-video-script (intro, three lesson scripts, summary; the elementary micro-lesson anatomy); review-figures (author self-check on fourteen renders; the non-author pass is owed) @ b0fa825
Grade 4 Topic 22 — What happens in an earthquake — build record (v1, 2 October 2026)
What this is, in plain words
Three short lessons, one per atom. A child first finds out what the ground is: at a road cut the class sees a thin band of soil over gray rock, and the lesson shows that under a street, a field or the sea the answer is the same — dig down anywhere and you reach rock, one hard shell round the whole Earth, about twenty miles thick under the land, and only then does the child meet the name crust (L01). Next, Kyla's kitchen shakes for twenty seconds and her cousin fifty miles away felt it too: the lesson recalls Topic 8's wave (energy travels, the water stays put), shows where an earthquake starts (rock deep in the crust suddenly slips) and how the shaking spreads out through the crust as waves — hard near the slip, gentle far away, the ground shaking in place — with a seismograph's line as Topic 8's wave drawing (L02). Last, the capstone: Keegan's tower on a wide heavy base and Kendra's tower with braces get the SAME shaking test, and the one with less damage protects better; looking at them could not have told the class that (L03). Nothing frightening is shown or said: damage is a cracked wall, a fallen bookshelf, a narrow crack across a road.
Counts. 3 lessons · 3 scripts (144, 150, 149 spoken words) + intro (98 words, 3 question marks) + summary (95 words) · 3 attached questions + the intro's poll + 3 summary questions · 33 quiz items (10 + 12 + 11) · 14 practice items (12 MCQ, 1 typed, 1 written answer; three Grade 3 retrievals and one Topic 8 retrieval; "crust" recognised and recalled by MCQ, "waves" offered then typed) · PP100 bank 50 items (46 four-option MCQs, 3 typed, 1 multi-select; EAR4-045 14, EAR4-046 19, EAR4-047 17; easy 15, medium 20, hard 15; MCQ keys A 11 · B 12 · C 12 · D 11) · 43 figures (31 SVG by code, 9 photo placeholders, 3 cartoon placeholders) · checker 0 FAIL, 27 WARN (every WARN answered below) · check_g4_articles.py 0 FAIL (articles 293 / 379 / 338 words — the two WARNs answered below) · names register exit 0 · page builds (/tmp/g4t22.html: 3 lessons, 14 practice, 50 pp100, 43 figures) · blind bundle cut (97 MCQ, 4 typed, 1 written, 1 multi) · video batch built, check_brief.py clean except the INTRO's standing R79 hit, grep -ci strand 0 · NOT sent.
Decisions made without a blueprint
| Lesson | Title (the skill in student terms) | Headache scene | Example sequence | Check type | Video? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| L01 EAR4-045 | What is under the ground: Earth's rocky crust | Miss Perez's class at a road cut on a field trip: a thin band of soil, gray rock down to the road; Kendra asks how far down the dirt goes | the FACT form, examples only (a universal attribute has no honest near miss): one frame "Under the <place> there is <soil / water>. Under that, there is rock." — E the road cut (seen) → E a city street → E a field → E the sea → the rock joins into one shell → the depth table (soil a few feet; the deepest hole seven miles; the crust twenty miles) → the name coined last → rule → closing return | (a) fluency: a Grade 3 recall, four what-is-under items, two is-it-part-of-the-crust items (the sea water as the near miss), the thicker item, the deepest-hole apply item, Keegan's soil-for-miles claim, the term item last | video and article |
| L02 EAR4-046 | How the shaking spreads out as waves | Kyla's kitchen in Oklahoma shakes for twenty seconds; her cousin calls from fifty miles away — he felt it too | process at recognition level: recall (an earthquake is a sudden shaking of the ground; a wave carries energy and the water stays put) → the slip (two huge pieces of rock push together, stick, suddenly slip: the star) → the spreading (each piece of rock shakes the next: arcs in the slice, rings on the map, an animated ring figure) → near and far (hard / gentle; the ground shakes in place) → the seismograph's line (tall near, short far: Topic 8's wave panel) → cracks are narrow; most damage is from the shaking → rule | (c) what / why / misconception / transfer, two recalls first, a drawn fluency run (two maps, one trace pair) in the middle, three claims, the sea-floor transfer | video and article |
| L03 EAR4-047 | Which defense protects better? Test both the same way | The class shaking table; Keegan's and Kendra's towers; the tower must stay standing through ten seconds of shaking — which will? | comparison routine (the capstone): recall defense (Grade 3) and criterion (Topic 11) → the two defenses (a wide heavy base; braces) → the same test for both (Topic 12's fair test) → the result read from the drawing and the table (3 fell / 0 fell) → the better one is the one with less damage in the same test → looks do not tell, the test does → real defenses (steel braces; rubber pads; a bookshelf strap) → rule | (c) with a drawn fluency run: two recalls, the what, two results tables, the fair-test item, the why, three claims (one TRUE), the bookshelf transfer | video and article |
One line each, with the reason:
- Three lessons, one per atom, in register order — the architecture row names three atoms and the capstone closes the topic; no atom needed splitting (each payoff is one clause).
- L01 is examples only, no non-example — the atom is a universal attribute (rock under everything), and the Forces log says leave the non-example out when none sits at the boundary; the sea's WATER is the near miss in the checks (it sits on the crust, it is not the crust).
- "Crust" is coined last, after four cases and the shell drawing — explain then label; the bread-crust gloss is one clause, because "crust" is a word the child already owns.
- The twenty-mile and seven-mile numbers are in the article and the depth table, not the script — the script's 150-word cap; the numbers make "a shell" more than a word, so they stay on the page (continental crust 30–50 km ≈ 20–30 miles, "about twenty miles" is the fit-for-purpose figure; the Kola hole 12.2 km ≈ 7.6 miles, "about seven miles").
- The layers below the crust are not named — the register's cross note sends the full layer list to grades 6-8; the shell drawing says only "the hot rock below".
- L02 recalls Topic 8's wave sentence word for word and never re-teaches it — "A wave carries energy across the water, and the water itself stays put, moving only up and down." is the recall line and the quiz's first item; the ground is given the same two facts (the shaking travels; the ground shakes in place).
- The slip is said in one sentence and not explained — the atom's behaviour names "where the rock slipped"; why the rock pushes (plates) is grade 6-8's; the star is the one glyph for "where the rock slipped".
- The seismograph is named and drawn with Topic 8's wave panel — the register's amplitude convention (height above the middle line) is reused so a tall line = hard shaking is a reading the child already has; the word "seismograph" is said because the real machine has no plain name (S36 answer below).
- L02 carries the three documented earthquake beliefs by name — the swallowing chasm, the only-far-away belief, and the ground-travels belief; L03 carries looks-tell, a-defense-stops-the-shaking, and the buildings-fall-because-the-ground-breaks belief (as a TRUE claim), because the defense lesson is where "what must a defense guard against" matters.
- L03's two defenses are both real defenses — a plain tower against a braced one would judge one design, not compare two (the register's cross note: comparing multiple solutions, not judging one); a wide heavy base and braces are both things engineers do.
- The criterion is stated and named, the constraint is not — Topic 11 coined both; this comparison needs only the job the design must do, and a constraint would be an invented limit (no invented apparatus).
- Rubber pads (base isolation) and steel braces are the two real-world photos — the one real pairing a child can see, and the bank's engineers item uses it; nothing collapsed is pictured.
- Every lesson gets a video — L01 needs the slice and the shell seen; L02 is a motion a child should watch spread; L03 is a test a child should watch happen.
- The intro is one scene (the school library, lamps swinging) with two felt questions — it does not reuse L02's kitchen (so L02's headache stays fresh) and coins nothing; the map line names only things a child can picture.
- "Crust" is in RECALL_BY_MCQ, on the brief's word; the typed key is "waves" — see Questions for James.
Grade 3 and Topic 8 doorways, recalled by one item and one line each, never re-taught: Grade 3 Topic 24 ("An earthquake is a sudden shaking of the ground"; "When an earthquake strikes, the ground can crack, and one side can end up a step higher"; "Most cracks are narrow, about as wide as a hand"; "the ground does not open up and swallow houses") — L01-q1, L02-q2, PR-1 and L02's cracks lines; Grade 3 Topic 25 ("Something people build so that dangerous weather does less damage is called a defense"; "Nobody can stop the weather, but a defense can hold back what it brings") — L03's two-defenses lines, L03-q1, PR-2; Grade 4 Topic 8 ("A wave carries energy across the water, and the water itself stays put, moving only up and down"; the amplitude drawing) — L02's recall line, L02-q1, PR-3, the trace figures; Grade 4 Topics 11 / 12 ("A criterion is a job the design must do, that anyone can test"; "Only the test tells whether a design does the job. How the design looks does not tell you") — L03's criterion line and q2, the looks-do-not-tell line and q8.
The simplification, named: "about twenty miles" for the crust under land (it varies from about twenty to thirty miles; the article says "about"); the slip stated without its cause; "the hot rock below" with no layer named. No note is printed in the article (none is needed: no number is rounded in a way a child could catch).
Questions for James (the build does not wait on them)
- Should "crust" be typed in the practice and the bank's hard tier, rather than recalled by MCQ? Context: the authoring brief for this topic asked for
RECALL_BY_MCQon "crust"; the standing rule types a term the grade can spell, and "crust" is five letters. Recommendation: type it — a typed "crust" is the bank's natural hard item for EAR4-045 and the standing rule favours it. Built as the brief asked (MCQ recall in L01-q10, PR-13 and PP type 13); flipping is oneRECALL_BY_MCQedit plus two items. - Is "seismograph" a word to keep, or should the lesson say only "a machine that draws the shaking as a line"? Context: the machine is named once with its plain explanation first, and five items say it; S36 flags it. Recommendation: keep — a nine-year-old meets the word in every earthquake news story, and the explanation precedes it. Built with it.
- Do L02 (379 words) and L03 (338 words) stand at their length, or should the seismograph section move to its own short lesson? Context: the brief allows an article above 300 words with a subtitle or figure every eight lines and a reason; L02's longest run of idea lines without a subtitle or figure is four, L03's is four; L02 carries the recall, the slip, the spreading, near and far, the seismograph and the cracks, and each piece feeds an item. Recommendation: keep as one article at this length; a split would make a fourth lesson for a recognition-level atom. Built as one.
Design-check-sequence records
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Skill: design-check-sequence @ b0fa825
Part: L01 (EAR4-045)
Type: (a) one-step fact — what is under a place; is a thing part of the crust; the answer is one label.
Plan: recall earthquake (3 opt, 0) → Texas pipe (3 opt, 2) → the sea floor (3 opt, 1) → Oregon gardener (3 opt, 0) → a lake's rock (yes) → the ocean's water (no) → thicker: the crust (A) → the seven-mile hole still inside the crust (yes) → Keegan's soil-for-miles claim (no) → the term among three (1). Two-option string A B A A B; three-option 0 2 1 0 1.
Belongs in practice/test instead: the four-way what-is-under set; which-of-four-is-part-of-the-crust; thickness and depth numbers; the term from its whole definition (PP types 1, 2, 3, 13).
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Skill: design-check-sequence @ b0fa825
Part: L02 (EAR4-046)
Type: (c) concept understanding — a process with a recalled mechanism (waves) and three documented beliefs.
Plan: recall energy (3 opt, 1) → recall the crack (3 opt, 0) → the WHAT: where it starts (3 opt, 2) → the WHAT: how the shaking reached Utah (3 opt, 1) → the WHY: the far town's correct reason (3 opt, 2) → map R / S (A) → map T / V (A) → traces J / K (B) → Kyla's claim: the ground slid (no) → Kendra's claim: only far away (no) → Keegan's claim: the ground swallows a street (no) → TRANSFER: a slip under the sea floor reaches the coast (yes). Two-option string A A B B B B A; three-option 1 0 2 1 2.
Belongs in practice/test instead: the four-way sets; three-line traces; the claims as reason items; the typed "waves" (PP types 4–8, 10, 14).
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Skill: design-check-sequence @ b0fa825
Part: L03 (EAR4-047)
Type: (c) concept understanding on a comparison routine — the capstone; two recalled words, a fair test, a reading, and three beliefs.
Plan: recall defense (3 opt, 0) → recall criterion (3 opt, 1) → the WHAT: cabinets (3 opt, 2) → table M / N (A) → table P / Q (A) → Kyla's unfair test (no) → the WHY: the braces' correct reason (3 opt, 0) → Kyla's claim: looks tell (no) → Keegan's claim: a defense stops the shaking (no) → Kendra's TRUE claim: a wall can crack with no crack in the ground (yes) → TRANSFER: the bookshelf's two defenses (3 opt, 1). Two-option string A A B B B A; three-option 0 1 2 0 1.
Belongs in practice/test instead: the four-way which-protects-better set with "both the same" and "you cannot tell" as real keys; the fair-test set; the claims as reason items; the two-step items; the multi-select (PP types 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16).
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The key strings
- Attached questions in video order (L01, L02, L03, summary 1–3): A B B A A B — A 3 of 6, B 3 of 6.
- Lesson quizzes, two-option items (first option = yes / A-named): L01
A B A A B· L02A A B B B B A· L03A A B B B A— no four in a row alternate; no position above 60 % within a lesson (L02: B 4 of 7 = 57 %). - Three-option items: L01
0 2 1 0 1; L021 0 2 1 2; L030 1 2 0 1; practice three-option1 2 0 1 0 2, two-optionA B A A B B. - PP100 MCQ keys: A 11 · B 12 · C 12 · D 11 (46 MCQs); the three typed items and the multi-select carry no letter.
- Claims: nine in the quizzes (L01 1, L02 3, L03 3) plus two in the practice; one is keyed yes (L03-q10, Kendra's TRUE claim); No carries 8 of 9 quiz claims — above the 70 % line, recorded here: the three Grade 4 beliefs in L02 are all false beliefs with no true twin that is not the lesson's own rule, and L03's one true claim is the belief turned round (a wall can crack with no crack in the ground).
The example sequences, written out
L01 (one frame, examples only; the rule is induced after):
- Under the road cut there is soil, about as deep as Keegan is tall. Under that, there is rock.
- Under the street there is pavement, then soil. Under that, there is rock.
- Under the field there is soil. Under that, there is rock.
- Under the sea there is water. Under that, there is rock.
- Dig down anywhere on Earth, and you reach rock. All that rock joins up into one hard shell. Earth's hard rocky outer shell is called the crust.
- Rule: The ground is the top of Earth's hard rocky outer shell, called the crust. The soil is only a thin layer on top of the rock.
L02 (the process, then near and far): the recall (a wave carries energy; the water stays put) · deep in the crust two huge pieces of rock push together, stick, suddenly slip (the star) · the slip shakes the rock next to it, and so on: the shaking spreads out through the crust as waves, in every direction · near: hard (Kyla's glasses rattled); far: gentle (her cousin's windows hummed); the farther the waves spread, the weaker they get · the ground at each town shakes in place and does not travel · the seismograph's line: tall near, short far · cracks are narrow; the ground does not swallow; most damage is from the shaking. Rule: An earthquake starts where rock deep in the crust suddenly slips. The shaking spreads out through the crust as waves, so the ground shakes far from where the rock slipped.
L03 (the routine, run once and then named): the criterion (stays standing through ten seconds) · two defenses (wide heavy base; braces) · the same test for both (the same shaking, the same ten seconds) · the result (3 fell; 0 fell), drawn and tabled · the better one (less damage in the same test) · looks could not tell; only the test did · the real pair (steel braces; rubber pads) and the bookshelf strap. Rule: To find which defense protects better, give both designs the same shaking test. The design with less damage protects better.
The rules applied
| Rule (vault note) | Where it bites here |
|---|---|
| Explain, then label; coin as "when X, we call it Y" | "crust" after four cases and the shell: "Earth's hard rocky outer shell is called the crust" |
| A coined term is used from then on, with a one-line recap on first reuse | L02 and L03 say "the crust" with no scaffold phrase; "wave" recapped in one line (L02); "defense" recapped in one line (L03); "criterion" recapped in one line (L03) |
| Lesson text states the fact, never the topic that taught it | "A wave carries energy across the water…" / "Something people build so that dangerous weather does less damage is called a defense." — no "in Topic 8 you saw" |
| A non-example is a near miss, never an absurd case | L01 has none in the run (universal attribute); the checks' near miss is the sea's water; the bank's distractors in type 2 are things that sit on the crust |
| A headache scene could really happen there | a class at a road cut; a kitchen shaking and a cousin's call; a class shaking table with a stopwatch; the intro's library |
| A question in an article is answered in the next sentence, verdict first | L03's script: "Which protects better? The braces: …"; L01's "How far down does the dirt go?" is answered by the subtitle's first line |
| Every sentence a student reads has a subject and a verb (S38) | 0 fragments after "And what is under the sea?" replaced "And under the sea?" |
| Connectives carry cause; a turn opens with But | "Kyla's town is ten miles from the slip, so her glasses rattled hard"; "Both towers had the same test, so the braces gave less damage" |
| The positive word; nothing frightening | "shakes gently", "stays whole", "every block stays"; damage is a cracked wall, a fallen bookshelf, a narrow crack; no person is hurt anywhere |
| No figurative verb a young reader takes literally | the rock "slips", the shaking "spreads out", the ground "shakes in place"; never "ripples through", "the earth splits open" |
| Say the specific thing; pronouns point at one named thing | "the ground at each town", "the far town", "the braces", "the wide base" repeated as nouns |
| Units as words in prose; numerals on screen | "twenty seconds", "fifty miles", "ten seconds" in prose; chips print 50 MILES, 10 SECONDS, 3 BLOCKS FELL; maps print "15 miles away" |
| Biggest / smallest for size only (S39) | 0 hits; distances are "farthest", shaking is "harder / more gently", counts are "fewer" |
| Grade-level words (S36) | 15 words listed and answered below; "hollow" → "an empty space", "hazard" → "dangerous weather or an earthquake", "comparison" → "the fair test", "labelled" → "with labels" swapped before this record |
| A script never speaks a verdict-mark word | "two sticks taped in a cross" → "two sticks taped from corner to corner" after check_brief.py flagged the spoken "cross" |
| An attached question stands alone (S27) | each attached stem names its own scene (an Iowa well; a Nevada slip; two model houses; a Nebraska well; a town eighty miles out; two fence designs) |
| Recognition before recall; typed only where the word is spellable (S33 / S34 / S35) | "crust" in RECALL_BY_MCQ (the brief's call), so L01-q10 and PR-13 are MCQs among sisters; "waves" is offered in PR-7 before PR-14 types it; S30 clean (the key is inside L02's lexicon sentence; article-less form first; child spellings listed) |
| A quiz climbs recognise → apply → produce (S32) | recalls → fluency → apply → claims → term in L01; recalls → what → why → drawn run → claims → transfer in L02 and L03 |
| An option never bundles a verdict with its reason | every quiz and practice claim is bare yes / no with the correction in the why; every bank claim is "X is wrong … What is the correct reason?" with four single-statement reasons |
| A comparison of two readings goes in a drawing or a table, never in prose | every near / far item is a drawn map or a drawn trace pair; every two-design result is a drawn table or two named results in one sentence |
| A "you cannot tell" option only where it is the genuine key (James, Topic 2 blueprint) | type 9's unfair-test table; "both the same" on the equal-result table |
| Fresh instances (S10; the bank-freshness grep) | 0 S10 warnings after "rattle" → "shake" and "on a shaking table" → "that got the same shaking test"; the scene-noun grep below |
| A real thing survives the claim made about it | the crust about twenty miles thick under land (20–30 mi continental); the Kola hole about seven miles (7.6 mi); Antarctica's ice over rock; earthquakes felt in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, South Carolina, Missouri (all have had felt quakes); rubber-pad base isolation and steel cross-bracing are real building defenses; a seismograph draws the shaking as a line — each checked |
| One depiction per thing, reused everywhere | one slice drawer (headache and labelled forms), one map drawer (teaching, animated and item forms), the star for "where the rock slipped" everywhere, Topic 8's wave_panel imported for every trace, Topic 18's table and rule_card and placeholders imported; the ring convention (dashed rings on a map; gray arcs in the slice) is one thing seen from two sides, said so in the figures docstring |
| Code draws what must be exact; David's pack renders what must look real | 31 SVG figures (slices, shell, maps, traces, towers, tables, rule cards); 9 photo placeholders (road cut, sea floor, crack, seismograph, shaking-table test, cracked wall, fallen bookshelf, braces building, pads building); 3 cartoon placeholders (the class scenes); no person or hand drawn as a glyph |
| An item figure's blind text is data, never the answer | maps list the towns' distances; traces list each line's height above the middle line; tables list their cells; grep of the bundle's [Drawing: …] lines for crust / wave / spreads / shakes / safer / stronger / better → 0 hits |
| Summary opens "Here's everything we found out about …" and recaps points, not examples | the opener, then the three lexicon sentences with "First / Next / And last", 95 words; four summary bullets |
| Energy is had or carried | "a wave carries energy"; never "energy makes the ground shake" |
Misconceptions confronted, by name
The vault's catalogue (Elementary physics misconceptions catalogue (grades 3-5).md) has no earthquake rows; these come from the literature named in each item's source.
| Belief (source) | Where the lesson meets it | The item |
|---|---|---|
| Soil or dirt goes down a long way, or all the way (Lillo 1994; Sharp, Mackintosh and Seedhouse 1995) | L01: "The soil is a thin layer, about as deep as Keegan is tall"; "Dig down anywhere on Earth, and you reach rock"; the depth table | L01-q9 (Keegan, no); PR-12 (Kendra, no) |
| The ground opens into a chasm and swallows things (Ross and Shuell 1993; Tsai 2001) | L02: "most cracks are narrow, about as wide as a hand"; "The ground does not open up and swallow houses or streets" (recalling Grade 3 Topic 24) | L02-q11 (Keegan, no); PP type 14 (Kendra's bus) |
| Earthquakes happen only far away, in other places (Ross and Shuell 1993) | L02: the waves spread for miles; the Grade 3 states line | L02-q10 (Kendra, no) |
| The ground itself travels with the shaking (the water-goes-with-the-wave belief; Wittmann 1998; Topic 8's register) | L02: "The ground at each town shakes in place. The ground itself does not travel" | L02-q9 (Kyla, no); PP type 8 (the Idaho farm); PP type 14 (Keegan's sliding school) |
| Buildings fall because the ground breaks open under them (Ross and Shuell 1993; Tsai 2001) | L02: "Most of the damage in an earthquake comes from the shaking, far from any crack"; L03's defenses guard against the shaking | L03-q10 (Kendra, TRUE claim, yes); PP type 8 (the South Carolina wall); PP type 15 (the town hall) |
| A defense stops or prevents the earthquake (Tsai 2001: children think earthquakes can be stopped) | L03: "nobody can stop the ground shaking, but a defense can make the damage smaller" (Grade 3 Topic 25's frame) | L03-q9 (Keegan, no); PP type 14 (Keegan's rubber pads) |
| The design that looks strongest is best; no test needed (Crismond and Adams 2012; Topic 12's only-the-test rule) | L03: "Looking at the two towers could not tell the class that. Only the test tells" | L03-q8 (Kyla, no); PP type 14 (Kyla's heavier-looking stand) |
| A test with different shaking still compares the designs (the fair-test gap; Topic 2 / 12) | L03: "each tower gets the same test: the same shaking, for the same ten seconds" | L03-q6 (no); PR-10 (no); PP type 9 (the unfair table); PP type 14 (Kendra's two stands); PP type 16 |
Checker result, every WARN answered
python3 build_tools_check_topic.py grade4/topic22_build/content/G4T22.py → 0 FAIL, 27 WARN (S30-COUNTS typed=4 fail=0 warn=0; S36-COUNTS unusual_words=15; S37 strand=0; S38 fragments=0; S39 hits=0; S29 0).
- S8 beat carries 3–4 sentences (×8): kept — the elementary micro-lesson's beats are one scene each with two to four short sentences (Topic 18's beats carry the same and its record says so); each beat is still ≤ 40 words and the scripts are 144 / 150 / 149 spoken words.
- S34 'crust' has no typed recall: by design — the brief put "crust" in RECALL_BY_MCQ for this topic; the recall is L01-q10, PR-13 and PP type 13 as MCQs among sisters (Question 1 for James).
- S34 'earthquake' / 'defense' / 'criterion' have no typed recall: by design — these are earlier topics' coined terms (Grade 3 Topics 24 and 25; Grade 4 Topic 11), listed in
termsfor the glossary and RECALLED by one MCQ each (L01-q1, L03-q1, L03-q2), never re-coined; they are not incoined_at, so no S12 reading applies. - S36 unusual words (15), one line each:
gently×28 — fine, a grade-4 word and the atom's own contrast with "hard";braces×22 — fine, the taught thing, explained first as "two sticks taped from corner to corner";ripples×7 — fine, Topic 8's word for the pond's small waves;seismograph×7 andseismographs×3 — ask James (Question 2); explained before it is named;sways×5 — fine, the literal motion of a tower that does not fall;bolts×3 — fine, an everyday hardware word in a design scene;wobble×2,tilts×2 — fine, literal motions of books and a picture;heavier×2 — fine, a weight comparison in a claim;labels×1 — fine, a caption word ("with labels");camera×1,subway×1,concrete×1 — fine, everyday US nouns in fresh scenes;bookshelves×1 — fine, the plural of a word the lesson uses. check_g4_articles.py: L02 379 words and L03 338 words above the 300 WARN line — kept with the reason in Question 3: L02 has ten figures and seven subtitles (longest run of idea lines without one: 4); L03 has eight figures and five subtitles (longest run: 4); every section feeds an item; L01 is 293.check_brief.py: every video ✓ except the INTRO's standing R79 hit (an intro has no rule slide and no bullets; accepted on every topic) and the intro/questions "at the limit" note (3 question marks: two felt questions and the ready line).
Bank freshness, re-performed
Scene nouns of every lesson, quiz, attached and summary item, grepped against the bank and the practice set (63 nouns: road cut, field trip, pavement, pipe, ship, camera, gardener, lake in Michigan, yard, Kansas, well, Iowa, kitchen, glasses, lamp, picture, cousin, twig, pond, Utah, Nevada, windows, Town R/S/T/V, line J/K, California, shaking table, tower, blocks, braces, sticks, stopwatch, cabinet, cups, Design M/N/P/Q, bookshelf, strap, toy bridges, sandbags, doorway, roof tiles, House A/B, fence, Fence A, Nebraska, Town F/G, Design X/Y, plant stand, cork, subway, store, cans, library, Oklahoma). After the pass, the bank hits are: pavement (a distractor option in the thickness item, not a scene), yard (inside the distractor "a fence to keep the shaking out of a yard"), well ("as well as", not the well), pond (the why line's Topic 8 recall), shaking table (the test instrument named in the table items — content, with fresh things on it: a dish rack, a chimney, a barn, stacks of boxes), braces (the real-world defense in the engineers and which-is-a-defense items — content, never a tower of blocks), sandbags (the Grade 3 defense as a deliberate wrong option), fence (a fence POST hole, a what-is-under scene), cans → 0 after the stacks became boxes; lamp / library → 0 after the Arkansas library became a diner and the town's library became its town hall; tower → 0 after the water tower became a water tank and the model water towers became lighthouses; cabinet / cups → 0 after the dresser and the plates; Nebraska → 0 after Illinois. The practice's own nouns (Town F/G, Design X/Y, plant stand, cork, subway, store, Oklahoma) match only themselves. No bank item reuses a taught scene with a noun changed.
Blind-text grep
grep -h '^\[Drawing:' grade4/topic22_build/blind/2026-10-02/*.md | grep -icE 'crust|wave|spreads|shakes|safer|stronger|better' → 0 hits. The fifteen drawing lines are maps ("a star; Town R 15 miles from the star; Town S 70 miles from the star"), traces ("line J: tops 8 above the middle line; line K: tops 28 above the middle line") and tables ("Design U, gentle shaking, 10 seconds, 0 blocks fell; Design V, hard shaking, 10 seconds, 3 blocks fell"). "wavy" does not appear in any blind line (the traces are "line J", never "wave J").
Figures (author self-check on the renders; the non-author review-figures pass is owed)
Rendered to /tmp/g4t22_figs/png/ at native size with headless Chrome and opened: slice_headache, slice_labels, earth_shell, table_depth, slip_side, waves_side, map_near_far, rings_anim (still frame), q_map_rs, trace_pair, pp_trace_qr, towers_before, towers_after, table_towers, pp_table_unfair, rule_waves, roadcut_photo (placeholder). Fixed on the render: the CRUST bracket moved from the right edge (it ran through the sea) to the left edge, from the ground surface to the bottom; the small arcs in waves_side were half-circles while the large ones were full — all are full circles now (the shaking spreads in every direction; the sky covers the top); the map sheet widened to 520 so "her cousin's town" and its chip sit inside the frame, and the far town moved nearer; Keegan's fallen blocks moved clear of the base row; the shell's ring was drawn as a filled disc (the inside read gray, the alt said pale orange) — now a stroke only, and the label clears the frame. Guards: Topic 8's wave_panel asserts every top clears its panel; Topic 18's table asserts every cell fits its column.
Names run
python3 build_tools_names.py Perez Keegan Kendra Kyla → Perez free · Keegan free · Kendra free · Kyla free, exit 0. No other character name appears; places are real US places (Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, Michigan, Kansas, Iowa, Utah, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Florida, Wyoming, Maine, Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, Montana, Arkansas, Idaho, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, California, Alaska, New York City, Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean, Lake Superior).
Sentence-atomise self-check (one table per paragraph, collapsed to the rows that changed)
| Paragraph | Ideas | Change made |
|---|---|---|
| L01 headache line 3 | 2 | split into two idea lines (S1: 24 words) |
| L01 closing return | 2 | "goes down only a little way, and the rock…" → two sentences in one line, 21 words |
| L01 "One shell of rock" | 4 | the hot-rock-below line cut (a neighbour fact: one atom, no rider) |
| L02 headache line 3 | 2 | "then it stops. An earthquake is…" → "then it stops: an earthquake." (the Grade 3 fact stated, not re-taught) |
| L02 "Near and far" line 3 | 2 | split into two idea lines (S1: 25 words) |
| L02 "Remember the pond" | 2 | the pond's stone line cut; the recalled sentence stands alone, then the link to rock |
| L03 "Which protects better?" | 3 | "Both towers had the same test, so the results can be compared. / The braces gave less damage…" → one line with "so" joining cause and effect |
| L03 "Real defenses" | 4 | the engineers line cut (length); the bookshelf line rewritten with the strap as the actor |
| every other paragraph | 1–2 per line | no change: one idea per sentence, named actor, the verb carrying the cause ("the slip shakes the rock next to it"), the plain word before the term ("hard rocky outer shell … called the crust") |
Judgement calls
- "Crust" by MCQ, "waves" typed — the brief's explicit call for this topic against the standing rule; Question 1.
- The three children as claim-makers more than once each — three names in the row and ten claims; the vault's one-claim-per-topic line cannot be met with three names, so each child's claims are on different beliefs and different scenes (Topic 18 took the same call).
- The No-keyed claims above 70 % — one TRUE claim built (L03-q10); the L02 beliefs have no honest true twin that is not the rule itself; recorded in the key strings.
- "Seismograph" named — Question 2.
- L02 and L03 above 300 words — Question 3.
- The slip said without a cause — the atom's "where the rock slipped" is the limit; plates wait for grade 6-8.
- "Dangerous weather or an earthquake" widens Grade 3's "defense" — Grade 3's definition names weather; the register (EAR4-047) names an Earth hazard; the recap keeps Grade 3's sentence verbatim and adds one sentence ("People build defenses against earthquakes too") rather than redefining.
- The "in a cross" phrase replaced by "from corner to corner" — the brief checker reads "cross" as the verdict mark; one word for one thing.
- Sixteen types on the type sheet — above the "about ten" ceiling because the capstone's comparison needs the table, the fair-test, the term and the claim forms as separate types; fewer would merge moves James reads separately.
Owed
- Blind review of
blind/2026-10-02/BLIND_BUNDLE_G4T22.md(103 items held; the keys file is sequestered) by a reader who has not seen the keys. - The non-author review-figures pass over the 31 SVG renders and the 12 placeholders' briefs.
- review-questions and review-lesson passes; review-accuracy on the crust thickness, the Kola depth and the base-isolation description.
- The picture pass (David's pack) on the 9 photo and 3 cartoon placeholders — after James's sign-off, since this record carries Questions for him.
- The video batch (
handoff/G4T22/videos/batch_G4T22.json, READY.md written) is NOT sent; James's word is needed for Grade 4's batches. - Nothing committed.
v2 — reviews applied (2 October 2026)
Skill: course-build → write-lesson (article lines) → write-mcqs (every item change) → write-explanation (fb / why lines) → sentence-atomise (every new sentence); figures by review-figures' findings @ efd8fba
In plain words. Three reviews read the topic cold (a blind key read by two readers, a guidance-and-questions review, a figure review). Every key held. What they found and what changed: two bank items had a second honest answer, and both now ask a question with one answer; six "hard" claim items had distractors no child would pick, and each now carries three wrong reasons a child really might choose, with a one-clause key that is never the longest; the seismograph's line was drawn as blue water, and it is now a dark pen line on white (the water look kept behind a switch for James); the ringed maps stopped short of the far town, so the rings now run past every town; Keegan's fallen blocks lie flat on the board; and about twenty wording and option fixes. Nothing frightening was added; no lesson's science changed.
#### Finding → change
| Source | Finding | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Blind, Review | PP-28: both chimneys lost 0 bricks, "both the same" and "you cannot tell" equally honest | Stem now "…and no bricks fell from either design. What does this test show?"; key "This test shows no difference between them" (C) |
| Blind, Review | PP-48 multi-select: the dresser itself is a fair control (three defensible options) | Single MCQ: the two anti-tip WAYS named as the two designs; "Which ONE thing should be different in the two tests?" key "the design being tested" (C) |
| Review | PP-39's stem printed "wavy" | "a tall line that goes up and down" |
| Review | PP-41–45: absurd distractors, ";" keys, longest key in all | Rebuilt: one-clause keys (35–48 chars), three distractors that half-accept the belief, the key never longest (checked by script); PP-41 re-scened to a ballpark, twelve miles |
| Review | PP-46 bundled options ("…better, because…") | A / B / both the same / cannot tell; key School B |
| Review, Figures | Traces drawn as water | _ink_panel() wraps Topic 8's wave_panel and strips the fill polygon and the water colour after the fact (Topic 8 not edited); TRACE_STYLE = "ink" default, "water" kept; alt text and the L02 caption say "a dark line" |
| Figures | towers_after blocks on end, over a wheel, past the board | Blocks lie flat on the board surface, one on another, inside the board's width (asserted); a same-length double arrow "the same shaking" under each board (before and after); H 300 |
| Figures | Rings stop short of the far town; a town outside the rings predicts the key | Rings 35…280 on every still map, thinner and paler outward, asserted past the farthest town; rings_anim grows to 240; waves_side gains r 270 and reaches the far house |
| Figures | slice_labels "city street" over a building; cracks read as rain; register said the CRUST bracket is on the right | Label in the sky above the buildings; five zigzag cracks; register text corrected |
| Figures | Star label crossed by the inner ring; empty text nodes; a one-way "grid" | Star's meaning as a top-left legend ("★ = where the rock slipped"); empty nodes removed; a faint grid both ways |
| Figures | pp_table_unfair alt differs; rule_crust and wall_photo unplaced; shaketable_photo unused; the cartoon's side unstated | Drawn through _item_table; rule_crust after L01's rule; wall_photo after L02's "a cracked wall, a fallen bookshelf" line; shaketable_photo deleted from FIGURES, kinds and briefs; the road-cut brief names the cut's side (left) |
| Blind | L01-04 used "crust" six items before L01-10 defined it | The term item now sits fourth, after the three what-is-under items; every stem that says "crust" follows it |
| Blind | "seismograph" never defined by an item | L02-q8 recognition item (a museum machine; seismograph / thermometer / stopwatch); PR-13 the same in practice; PP-37 the hard term item among four instruments; terms["seismograph"]; RECALL_BY_MCQ (11 letters); coined_at L02 |
| Blind, Review | "constraint" as a distractor (L03-q2, PP-33), Topic 11's word unused here | Dropped: L03-q2's sisters are now wave / criterion / defense; PP-33 rebuilt as a comparison. Nothing to recall, so no recap line was added |
| Blind | PP-27 a shaking kitchen (L02's scene); L02-q9 Kyla's cousin verbatim; L03-q6 / q7 the lesson's towers | PP-27 two model silos (blocks); L02-q9 "the ground under one town slid thirty miles to the next town"; L03-q6 two model bridges; L03-q7 two model garages |
| Blind | PP-37 / 38 / 39 one answer three times; PP-41 D printed it | PP-37 cut (the lexicon-sentence stem); two typed items stay; PP-41's options no longer print "waves" |
| Blind | Accept list narrow | waves / wave / a wave / the waves / the wave / as waves / as a wave / shaking waves / energy waves / waves through the crust / wavs / wavez / waives / wavse / waevs (bank and PR-15) |
| Review | Fair test unrecalled in L03 | Topic 2's sentence word for word ("A test where only one thing is changed, and everything else stays the same, is called a fair test.") then "Here the one thing that changes is the defense." |
| Review | The only-far-away belief had no lesson line | "Earthquakes happen in California, Alaska, Oklahoma and many other states." in L02's Near and far (Grade 3 Topic 24's line) |
| Review | PP-33–35 tested criterion / defense alone | Three comparisons: water tanks (clear winner), sign posts shaken for different times (cannot tell), a mirror on a wide stand or a hook |
| Review | "so the walls do not crack" | "so the walls crack less when the ground shakes" (L03 article; L03-q9 why) |
| Review | One TRUE claim in eight | Kyla (L01-q6, yes: the rock under the sea floor is part of the crust) in place of the lake item; Keegan (L02-q12, yes: the ground shook but stayed where it was) in place of the swallowing-hole claim, which stays in L02-q2's options, the lesson lines and PP-42 |
| Review | Silly distractors | L01-q2 "packed soil"; L01-q3 "mud, all the way down"; L01-q4 "one big stone with soil under it"; L03-q7 "It had a wider base." / "It was the heavier of the two."; SUM-2 "the air"; maps "the town with more houses" |
| Review | L02-q4 unparallel; L03-q3 bundled | L02-q4 three full sentences; L03-q3 "neither cabinet" |
| Review | Post C / D under options A / B | Post E / Post F |
| Review | L02-q5 fb A presumed ground type is never a factor | "The far town's ground type is not what makes the difference here. The farther the waves spread, the weaker they get." |
| Review | L02 at 379 words | Three "Cracks and shaking" lines → two; "like ripples far from the splash" cut; the two Kyla / cousin application lines cut (the map caption carries them); the states line added → 347 |
| Review (Leave, taken where cheap) | "Shake!"; "He felt the same shaking"; the L03 attached stem at 25 words; stale check_design strings | "Let's shake them." (and "the same shaking for ten seconds" so the script stays at 149); "He felt it too."; "two tiles" (24 words); check_design rewritten for all three lessons. PR-14 still echoes L01-q4 (left) |
#### Questions for James — built as recommended
- Type "crust"? Built as the brief asked (MCQ recall); the reviewer agrees with typing it, with the accept list crust / the crust / Earth's crust / krust / cruste. One
RECALL_BY_MCQedit plus two items if James says type. - Keep "seismograph"? Kept, now in
termsandRECALL_BY_MCQwith recognition and recall items (above). - L03 one article; L02 trimmed. L03 stays one article (360 words after the fair-test recap the reviewer asked for; a figure or subtitle every ≤ 4 lines); L02 trimmed to 347.
- The seismograph trace (new, from both the guidance and the figure review). Built as a dark pen line on white with the dashed middle line (
TRACE_STYLE = "ink"). The water look is one switch away ("water") and both renders are in/tmp/g4t22_figs/png/trace_pair.pngandtrace_pair_WATER.png. Cleaner shared fix: afill=Falseswitch inside Topic 8'swave_panel, which this topic may not edit. Also for James:earth_shell's label "the hot rock below" is one fact beyond EAR4-045 (the figure review's note); kept.
#### Counts and key strings (v2)
- Lessons 3; quizzes 10 + 13 + 11 = 34; practice 15 (13 MCQ, 1 typed, 1 written); attached 3 + poll + 3 summary.
- Articles 293 / 347 / 360 words; scripts 144 / 150 / 149; intro 98; summary 95 (
check_g4_articles.py0 FAIL; two WARNs above 300, answered: L02 is at the reviewer's target, L03 carries the asked-for recap). - Bank 50: 48 four-option MCQs, 2 typed; EAR4-045 14, EAR4-046 19, EAR4-047 17; easy 15, medium 20, hard 15; tags never fall within the sorted list; MCQ keys A 12 · B 13 · C 12 · D 11; fifteen types (
TYPES_G4T22.mdupdated). - Attached (video order):
A B B A A B. Two-option strings: L01A B A A B; L02A A B B B A A; L03A A B B B A; practiceA B A A B B. Three-option: L010 2 1 1 0; L021 0 2 1 2 0; L030 1 2 0 1; practice1 2 0 1 0 1 2. - Claims: L01 yes / no; L02 no / no / yes; L03 no / no / yes — three TRUE of eight quiz claims (was one).
#### Checker results
build_tools_check_topic.py→ 0 FAIL, 24 WARN (S8 beats of 3–4 short sentences, as in v1; S34 earlier topics' words with no typed recall, as in v1; S36 twelve words — one new: "museum" ×2, fine, a nine-year-old knows it; "gently", "braces", "sways", "heavier", "tilts", "wobble", "ripples", "bolts", "camera", "bookshelves", "subway" as answered in v1).check_g4_articles.py→ 0 FAIL (counts above).build_tools_names.py Perez Keegan Kendra Kyla→ all free, exit 0.build_tools_build_topic_site.py→/tmp/g4t22_v2.html: 3 lessons, 15 practice, 50 pp100, 42 figures; each lesson's article route screenshotted (/tmp/g4t22_figs/png/page_L0*.png) and read:rule_crustafter L01's rule, the maps' rings past both towns, the ink traces, the flat blocks and the "same shaking" arrows all on the page.check_svg_ids.py→ PASS (42 figures, 0 ids). Changed figures re-rendered to/tmp/g4t22_figs/and opened:towers_after,map_near_far,pp_map_lm,waves_side,trace_pair(ink and water),pp_trace_qr,slice_labels.build_tools_video_batch.py→ 5 videos, key string A B B A A B;check_brief.py→ L01, L02, L03, SUMMARY clean; the INTRO's standing R79 line only. Not sent.- Blind bundle
blind/2026-10-02-v2/(101 MCQ, 3 typed, 1 FRQ; 105 held).grep '^\[Drawing:' | grep -iE 'crust|wave|spreads|shakes|safer|stronger|better|protects'→ 0 hits on 15 drawing lines (maps as distances, traces as heights, tables as cells).
#### Items changed (stem, options, key, model, figure, blind text or accept list)
L01-q2, L01-q3, L01-q4 (the term item, moved up), L01-q5 (one distractor), L01-q6 (now Kyla's TRUE claim), L01-q7…q10 (positions only); L02-q4, L02-q5 (fb), L02-q8 (new seismograph item; q9–q13 renumbered), L02-q10 (Kyla re-scened), L02-q12 (now Keegan's TRUE claim); L03-q2, L03-q3, L03-q6, L03-q7, L03-q9 (why), L03 attached; SUM-2; PR-13 (new seismograph item; PR-14, PR-15 renumbered), PR-15 (accept list); PP-15 (option order), PP-18, PP-19, PP-20 (a distractor), PP-27 (scene; figure pp_table_gh blind text "blocks"), PP-28, PP-30 (type), PP-32, PP-33, PP-34, PP-35 (rebuilt), PP-37 (new seismograph term item in place of the cut typed item), PP-38 and PP-39 (accept list; PP-39 stem), PP-41, PP-42, PP-43, PP-44, PP-45, PP-46, PP-48, PP-49 (type). Figures changed: slice_headache, slice_labels, waves_side, map_headache, rings_anim, map_near_far, all six item maps, trace_pair, q_trace_jk, pp_trace_np, pp_trace_qr, towers_before, towers_after, pp_table_gh, pp_table_unfair; shaketable_photo deleted.
v3 — polish (2 October 2026, from the v2 re-read)
Skill: write-mcqs → write-explanation → sentence-atomise (every new sentence) @ efd8fba
In plain words. A third cold reader agreed every key on the v2 bundle (105 items) and left eight polish flags. All eight are applied; no key, no lesson line and no figure changed. The flags and the changes:
| Flag | Change |
|---|---|
| PP-44: option C ("pads stop the shaking under the building, not around it") is close to what pads really do | C is now plainly false: "The pads stop the shaking everywhere in town, not only under the building." |
| PP-42: the key leans on a width no quiz item taught; the three distractors are absurd | L02 gains a quiz item on the width (L02-q3: a crack across an Oregon parking lot, about as wide as a hand / a car / a street), placed after the Grade 3 crack recall and before any bank use; L02-q2's fb and why no longer print the width (an earlier why never gives a later answer). PP-42's distractors now each keep part of the belief: the ground opens and closes again; a hole big enough for a person, not a bus; a hole only right over the slip |
| PP-41: every distractor says "slid", the key is the odd one out | The distractors' verbs vary: "traveled only a few feet, not twelve miles"; "moved twelve miles and then came back"; "Only the soil on top moved, and the rock under it stayed" |
| PP-49 and L03-q11: the key is the only long option | PP-49's key is "Shake a model of each the same way." (35 characters, the shortest of four); L03-q11's key is "Give both the same shaking test." against two 29–33-character distractors |
| PP-43: "tells" with no object | "Only the same test for both tells which protects better." (56 characters; the third-longest of four, after option C was lengthened by three words) |
| L03-q7 / L03-q8 cue the lesson's tower scene | L03-q7's distractor "It had a wider base." is now "It was the newer of the two." (and its fb); L03-q8 says "the design that looks strongest", never the tower, and its why says "both designs must get the same test" |
| Bundle key-letter runs B ×4 at PP-15–18 and A ×4 at PP-47–50 | PP-16's key moved from D to C and PP-49's from C to D (options re-ordered). Bundle string (v3 cut): ABBCBACABDCBACBABBCCBBABDBADABDAAACCC--CDBCBBDAADA, no run of four; authored string ABCDABCDBBCACADCCBABDCDBCDACDBABBDACB--ACADABBACDD, A 12 · B 13 · C 12 · D 11 |
| Accept "shaking waves", "wave's", "waves of energy" | "shaking waves" was already on both lists; "waves of energy" and "wave's" added to the bank's WAVES list and PR-15's list |
#### Counts (v3)
- Quizzes 10 + 14 + 11 = 35 (L02-q3 added; v2's L02-q3…q13 are v3's q4…q14). L02's three-option string is now
1 0 1 2 1 2 0; every two-option string is unchanged. - Bank 50 (48 MCQ, 2 typed); the tag order and the per-atom counts are unchanged. Every changed item's key is not its longest option (checked by script: PP-41 key 42 of 42–57; PP-42 key 48 of 48–68; PP-43 key 56 of 49–62; PP-44 key 35 of 35–74; PP-49 key 35 of 35–41).
build_tools_check_topic.py→ 0 FAIL, 24 WARN (the same S8, S34 and S36 lines as v2, "museum" included; no new WARN — PP-49's "invented" / "recently" draft was reworded before the cut).check_g4_articles.py→ 0 FAIL (articles 293 / 347 / 360, unchanged).build_tools_build_topic_site.py→/tmp/g4t22_v3.html: 3 lessons, 15 practice, 50 pp100, 42 figures.check_svg_ids.py→ PASS.- Blind bundle
blind/2026-10-02-v3/(102 MCQ, 3 typed, 1 FRQ; 106 held), keys sequestered. Owed: a reader for the changed items only (L02-q2, q3; L03-q7, q8, q11; PP-16, 41, 42, 43, 44, 49).
#### Items changed (v3)
L02-q2 (fb B, why), L02-q3 (new; q4–q14 renumbered), L03-q7 (one distractor and its fb), L03-q8 (stem, why), L03-q11 (key text); PP-16 (option order), PP-38, PP-39 (accept list), PP-41 (distractors), PP-42 (distractors, hb), PP-43 (two options), PP-44 (one distractor), PP-49 (options, key position, why); PR-15 (accept list). Figures: none. Type sheet: the type 14 exemplar (PP-44) and the type 10 accept list updated; a v3 line added.
Nothing committed.
The guidance, questions and accuracy review (2 October 2026)
Skill: course-build → review-lesson (Roles B, B2) → review-questions → review-accuracy (non-author pass; filed by the coordinator from the reviewer's hand-back) @ efd8fba
Topic 22 — guidance, questions and accuracy review, 2 October 2026
The science is honest at Grade 4 depth and the three lessons are the right shape: the crust coined last after four cases, the slip said without plates, the shaking "spreads out as waves … the ground shakes in place" exactly matching Topic 8's recalled sentence, both defences real and tested in the same test. Re-performed: scripts 144 / 150 / 149; intro 98; summary 95; L02 379 / L03 338 with a figure or subtitle every ≤4 lines; 50 bank items (14 / 19 / 17), keys A 11 B 12 C 12 D 11; names clean; blind lines distances and heights only. Five things stop it shipping: two bank items with a second defensible key (PP-28, PP-48 — both blind readers found the same), a typed stem that prints "wavy", six "hard" claim items whose distractors no child would pick, and the seismograph traces drawn as blue water.
The author's three questions, the reviewer's view: (1) type "crust" — agree (five letters a child owns; accept crust / the crust / Earth's crust / krust / cruste); (2) keep "seismograph" — agree, add it to terms and RECALL_BY_MCQ; (3) L03 as one article — agree; L02 one article trimmed to about 340 (merge the three "Cracks and shaking" lines into two; cut "like ripples far from the splash"). For James: the seismograph trace — a no-fill ink line on Topic 8's panel (one drawer, a switch), or keep the water look with the caption "drawn the way we drew water waves in Topic 8" (the figure review raised the same).
| where | finding | rule broken | severity | the rewrite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PP-28 | two defensible keys (0 and 0 bricks) | real distractors | Essential | "No bricks fell from either design. What does this test show?" — J protects better / K protects better / This test shows no difference between them / The test was unfair |
| PP-48 (multi) | three defensible options (the shaker too) | same; four options | Essential | single MCQ: "Which ONE thing should be different in the two tests?" — the shaking / the time / the design of the dresser / the floor it stands on |
| PP-39 typed | stem prints "wavy" | stem never names its answer | Essential | "A seismograph draws a tall line that goes up and down as the ground shakes…" |
| PP-41–46 (type 14) | absurd distractors; ";" keys; longest key in all six | hard means more of the skill; no bundling; key tells | Essential | the reviewer's rewrites (PP-41 "The ground at the school shook in place."; PP-42 "A crack closes up before anything falls in." etc.; PP-44 "Nobody can stop the ground shaking.") |
| trace_pair, q_trace_jk, pp_trace_np, pp_trace_qr | trace drawn as water | figures tell the truth about shape | Essential (James's call on the route) | wave_panel with fill off: a dark pen line on white, dashed middle line kept |
| L03 "Same test" | fair test unrecalled | recap on first reuse | Worth fixing | "A test where only one thing is changed, and everything else stays the same, is called a fair test. Here the one thing that changes is the defense." |
| L03-q6, q7; L02-q9 | the lesson's own scenes | fresh instance | Worth fixing | model bridges / model garages; "Kyla says the ground under one town slid thirty miles to the next town." |
| L02 "Near and far" | the "only far away" belief has no lesson line | misconception addressed | Worth fixing | "Earthquakes happen in California, Alaska, Oklahoma and many other states." |
| PP-33–35 (type 12) | test "criterion" / "defense" alone under EAR4-047 | one atom per item | Worth fixing | compare items (two model barns, the same test) |
| L03 article, q9 why | "so the walls do not crack" | say the specific thing | Worth fixing | "…so the walls crack less when the ground shakes." |
| L01, L02 quizzes | one TRUE claim in eight | claim string | Worth fixing | Kyla: the rock under the sea floor is part of the crust (yes); Keegan: the ground shook but stayed where it was (yes) |
| L01-q2 / 3 / 4, L03-q7, SUM-2, maps | silly distractors | real distractors | Worth fixing | "packed soil"; "mud, all the way down"; "one big stone with soil under it"; "It had a wider base."; "the air"; "the town with more houses" |
| L02-q4; L03-q3; PP-46 | unparallel options; bundled options | options name their subject; no bundling | Worth fixing | as the reviewer wrote |
| TOPIC terms | "seismograph" absent | glossary | Worth fixing | "a machine that draws the shaking of the ground as a line"; RECALL_BY_MCQ |
| PP-32 | Post C / D under options A / B | lettering outside the option alphabet | Worth fixing | Post E / Post F |
| L02-q5 fb A | "Soft or hard ground is not the reason" (soft ground shakes harder) | fb never presumes | Worth fixing | "The ground type is not what the lesson's reason is about. The farther the waves spread, the weaker they get." |
| slice_labels | label overprints the building | labels point at the thing | Worth fixing | move "city street" to the sky |
| "about twenty miles"; "about seven miles"; "soil a few feet"; "the hot rock below"; "one shell" beside "two huge pieces" | — | honest and enough | Leave | — |
| L03 attached stem 25 words; "Shake!"; stale check_design strings; PR-13 repeats L01-q10; "He felt the same shaking" | — | minor | Leave (take where cheap) | "Let's shake them."; "He felt it too." |
The figure review (2 October 2026)
Skill: course-build → review-figures (non-author pass; filed by the coordinator from the reviewer's hand-back) @ efd8fba — figures at g3-5-science commit f30231b
Topic 22 — figure review, 2 October 2026
Big green maps with a yellow star and dashed rings; blue "water" waves standing in for a seismograph's pen line; two block towers on wheeled boards. The ground slice and the Earth ball read cold in two seconds and say the right thing: rock all the way down, one thin shell. Page pass: every figure renders on the built page as alone; check_svg_ids.py PASS (no ids used). Every lettered stem matches its drawing; every figure item's key checked against the render — all 15 correct. Mechanical pass clean bar one label (4).
towers_after— the fallen blocks are wrong three ways: drawn standing on end, one over the board and wheel, one floating past the board's end. Lie each flat on the board surface within the board's width.- The ringed maps stop short of the far town, and the rings track the key. On
map_near_farthe outer ring is r 140 and the cousin's town is at 196, under a chip saying SHAKES GENTLY — the picture says the waves never got there;rings_animfades before the town; on all six item maps the nearer town sits inside the rings and the farther one outside, so "inside the rings" predicts the key. Rings out past the farthest town (35…280, thinner and paler as they go); anim to ≈ 240;waves_sidegains a ring (r 270) to reach the far house. - The seismograph "line" is Topic 8's water wave (blue line, pale fill beneath) on
trace_pair,q_trace_jk,pp_trace_np,pp_trace_qr. The reading routine (height above the middle line) is right; the fill misleads. For James (one line): a no-fill, ink-coloured variant of Topic 8's panel (afill=Falseswitch, one drawer), or keep with the caption "drawn the way we drew water waves in Topic 8". slice_labels: "city street" printed across the left building. Move to the sky above the buildings.
Unplaced (3): rule_crust — PLACE after L01's rule (L02 and L03 show theirs); wall_photo — PLACE after L02's "a cracked wall, a fallen bookshelf"; shaketable_photo — DELETE.
Minor: the star's label "where the rock slipped" crossed by the inner ring on seven maps; the map "grid" reads as a lined field; every town carries an empty text node; pp_table_unfair alt differs from its siblings; rock "cracks" read as rain; register text says the CRUST bracket is on the right (it is on the left); earth_shell's inside labelled "the hot rock below" (one fact beyond EAR4-045 — James's call); nothing shows "the same shaking" on the tower pair (a same-length double arrow under each board); roadcut_cartoon brief could state the cut's side.
| key | kind | used by | verdict | what is wrong | the fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| slice_headache, table_depth, map_headache, slip_side, rule_waves, towers_before, table_towers, rule_defense, q_table_mn, q_table_pq, pp_table_gh, pp_table_jk, pr_table_xy | svg | L01–L03, items | OK | minor notes | — |
| slice_labels | svg | L01, summary | FIX | label over a building | move to the sky |
| earth_shell | svg | L01 | OK / ask | "hot rock below" label | James's call |
| rule_crust | svg | none | PLACE | — | after L01's rule |
| waves_side, rings_anim, map_near_far | svg | L02 | FIX | waves stop short of the far house / town | rings out past it |
| trace_pair, q_trace_jk, pp_trace_np, pp_trace_qr | svg | L02, items | ASK | water fill under a "pen line" | no-fill ink variant, or the caption |
| q_map_rs, q_map_tv, pp_map_wx, pp_map_yz, pp_map_lm, pr_map_fg | svg item | quiz / bank / practice | FIX | rings predict the key; label on a ring | as map_near_far |
| towers_after | svg | L03 | FIX | fallen blocks on end, off the board | lie flat on the board |
| pp_table_unfair | svg item | bank | minor | alt differs | match |
| roadcut_cartoon, kitchen_cartoon, shaketable_cartoon | cartoon | L01–L03 | OK | side of cut unstated | add |
| roadcut_photo, seafloor_photo, seismograph_photo, crack_photo, braces_photo, pads_photo, shelf_photo | photo | L01–L03 | OK | — | — |
| wall_photo | photo | none | PLACE | — | L02 |
| shaketable_photo | photo | none | DELETE | — | — |
Three best: earth_shell, slip_side, the results tables. Three weakest: towers_after, the item maps, the trace set.
The blind read: two readers, then the v2 re-read (2 October 2026)
Skill: course-build → review-lesson (Role A blind key read, two readers; Role C adjudication by the coordinator) @ efd8fba
Topic 22 — What happens in an earthquake — blind read, 2 October 2026
Every key agreed by two blind readers (103 items; MCQ disagreements 0 for both; PP-48 multi B, D matched; the typed "waves" items on the lists; the FRQ model in the key's words). Both readers flag the same two bank items as two-defensible. The two-defence comparison (L03-07) is clean: the stem gives only the damage count, so "looked stronger" has no support. The intro poll is not bundled by design.
Flags carried into the fix pass
| Item | Who | Flag | Ruling |
|---|---|---|---|
| PP-28 | A, B | both chimney designs lost 0 bricks in the same test: "both the same" (key) and "you cannot tell from this table" are equally honest — and PP-47 in the same bank teaches that a test too gentle to break either tells you nothing | give one design some damage, or ask whether the test showed a difference (key "no, the test was too gentle") |
| PP-48 (multi) | A, B | option C "the design of the dresser" is a fair control (same dresser, only the anti-tip way differs) | replace C with something plainly irrelevant, or state that the two ways ARE the two designs |
| L01-04 before L01-10 ("crust"); "seismograph" never defined by an item | A, B | order; a half-defined term | reorder L01; add a seismograph recognition item in L02 |
| "constraint" as a distractor in L03-02, PP-33 | A, B | Topic 11 / 12's word — fine if recalled; a child taught "a rule it must obey" may pick it for "must hold ten blocks" | the guidance review rules; recall Topic 11's coin in L03 if used |
| PP-41 (Kyla's fifty-mile claim renamed); L03-03, PP-27 shaking kitchens | A, B | scene renames | re-scene the bank ones |
| ⟂ | A, B | PP-41 D prints "waves" (PP-37 / 38 / 39) and the key for PP-14 / 15; PP-36 prints "about twenty miles" (PP-10 / 11); PP-22 prints the rule for PP-18–21; PP-24 and PR-08 state tall line = harder (PP-21 / 40); PP-37 / 38 / 39 share one answer | on the type sheet; thin the three typed "waves" items to two |
| PP-44 | A | three absurd distractors | one real one |
| typed "waves" | A, B | accept wave / the waves / as waves / wavs / wavez; "shaking waves", "energy waves" | widen |
Readers' files: blind/2026-10-02/READER_A.md, READER_B.md.
v2 re-read, 2 October 2026 (Reader C on blind/2026-10-02-v2, the whole bundle)
Every key agreed (105 items; MCQ disagreements 0; the typed "waves" items on the lists; the FRQ model in the key's words). "Crust" and "seismograph" are each defined by an item before a stem uses them; every two-defence comparison reads one way; PP-28 (equal result) reads one way. Flags to the polish pass: PP-44 — option C "Rubber pads stop the shaking under the building, not around it" is close to what pads really do, so a child who met pads as a defence can defend it: make C plainly false; PP-42 — the key leans on "about as wide as a hand", a width no quiz item taught, and its distractors are absurd: a lesson line or a re-stem; PP-41's distractors all say "slid" (key the odd one out); PP-49 and L03-11 keys the only long option; PP-43 "tells" with no object; L03-07 / L03-08 cue the lesson's tower scene; key-letter runs B ×4 (PP-15–18) and A ×4 (PP-47–50); accept "shaking waves", "wave's", "waves of energy". Reader's file: READER_C.md.