"The Gulls of Salt Lake" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about a group of early settlers who had endured the hardships of traveling west and planted crops in the fertile soid, only to be invaded by swarms of crickets. Just when it seemed hopeless, the sea gulls came and ate all of the crickets. It is followed by constructed-response questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes: sequencing, making inferences, describing character traits, finding main idea, and summarizing. This passage aligns with Common Core Anchor Reading Standards 1 requiring close reading, textual evidence, main idea, and summarizing.