Main Idea—Leeuwenhoek's Microorganisms

Leeuwenhoek's Microorganisms — Main Idea and Supporting Details

This one-page reading activity gives students an original, non-fiction passage about Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the cloth merchant whose homemade lenses revealed an entire world of living things too small to see. Students read the passage, then complete a four-part graphic organizer: the topic, the main idea, and two supporting details drawn from the text.

The passage follows Leeuwenhoek from counting threads in fabric to examining rainwater, pond water, soaked pepper, and the scum from his own teeth, and closes by naming what he found and noting that most microorganisms are a single cell. It also includes a detail students must weigh carefully: nobody believed him, so he had witnesses sign statements. That fact is interesting but supports a claim about evidence rather than the passage's main idea, which makes it a useful distractor in the organizer.

Students who can tell a supporting detail from a merely memorable one will complete this correctly.

What is included

• One-page reading passage with graphic organizer
• Complete answer key with sample responses
• Print-ready PDF, black and white friendly

Ideal for close reading in science, reading in the content areas, sub plans, early finishers, or interactive notebooks.