What's the Big Idea?
Lesson
Design: Reading to Learn
Rationale:
As students grow as
readers, they need to master many different strategies for advanced fluency, or
reading to learn. One of these strategies is learning to Summarize. By learning
the steps to Summarize, students are able to get to the core of important
information presented by the author, while eliminating unnecessary or repeated
information. Then, finally, put they main idea of the reading into their own
words. Simplifying readings this way will help the students better comprehend
the subject better.
Materials:
*One for each student:
National Geographic Explorer "Hot Spots"
by Beth Geiger.
*Students need: paper,
pencil
*Smart Board
*Big Idea Checklist,
for each student
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BIG IDEAS
Did your partner: |
Yes |
No |
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Underline important information |
|
|
|
Cross out repeated information |
|
|
|
Cross out unimportant information |
|
|
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Write a few sentences about the Big Idea |
|
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Procedures:
1. Does anyone know what it
means to summarize? Summarizing means that we, as readers, are looking for the
Big Idea from what we are reading. When we are Summarizing, we ask ourselves
what is the main point the author is trying to get through to us. We do this by
reading though an article or reading and deciding what is and what is not
important about it. Focusing on the interesting, yet ultimately unimportant
points detracts us from understanding the Big Ideas of what we are reading. You
all help me as I pick out important information and cross out things that are
not important. After that we will cross out anything that is only repeated
information and then we will be left with our Big Ideas of the reading!
2. [Have the "Volcanoes:
Fire Down Below" article up on your blackboard with the ability to write on the
article (underline and cross out information)]. Model: What do you know about
volcanoes? What do they look like? What is the material that comes out of
volcanoes? The first thing we do is to read each paragraph of our article,
looking for things we think are important. What was important about the first
one? I think it gave us a good idea about how big volcanic eruptions are and how
dramatic their effect can be, here I will underline: "titanic forces that are at
work in the interior of the planet."
Guided Practice:
After reading the second
paragraph, I think that information like "The Earth's metallic core is cloaked
by a mantle of molten rock" is important and should be underlined, while
information about an eruption being "like a shaken bottle of carbonated soda" is
interesting for think about, but as important, so I will cross that out. What
are some other ones you can find?
Are there any places where
they repeat information, or say the same thing twice in different ways?
I noticed was that "molten rock" and
"hot, liquefied, gas-infused rock" are both ways of describing lava (repeated
information), so I would chose one and cross out the other.
Let's do the last paragraph
together. Do you see anything that strikes you as very important? Anything that
seems like it is not important? Is there anything that is repeated? [Cross out
or underline information based on their answers.]
Let's read what we are left
with. "Watching a volcanic eruption, titanic forces that are at work in the
interior of the planet. The Earth's metallic core is cloaked by a mantle of
molten rock, tremendous pressures build up, endless churning has split the
surface, magma squirts out the top. Sometimes the eruption is sudden and
violent, At other times eruptions are relatively slow and quiet--depending on
the nature of the magma." These are the Big Ideas of the article.
Let's see if we can put
this into our own words: "In the Earth's core there is molten rock that is
churning. As the pressure builds the molten rock comes up through splits in the
surface. Depending on nature of the magma, the molten rock, or lava as it exits
the volcano, can make the eruption sudden and violent or slow and quiet."
3. [Give each student a
copy of "Hot Spots" and a Big Ideas checklist] Now we are going to read an
article about Hotspots on our own. This print-out is your own, so I expect to
see underlined information that you think is important and crossed out
information that is not important or repeated. After you have narrowed the
article down to it's Big Ideas, get out a piece of paper and write them down in
your own words.
Next, I will pair you off
with partners and you will "grade" each other's Summaries or Big Ideas with the
checklist that you were given.
4. Assessment:
Observation for participation and accuracy during the article we did together. I
will ask the students to sign their names as Graders on the checklist and hand
it to their partner to staple to their article and written Big Ideas on notebook
paper. I will evaluate for accurate summaries of this article, looking for each
of the steps laid out in the checklist.
Reference:
National Geographic
Explorer "Hot Spots" by
Beth Geiger. May 2004 issue, pages 10-15.
Or:
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0405/articles/mainarticle.html
Beth Crenshaw "
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