Sinking into Summarization
Rationale: Once
children have learned to read accurately and fluently, they must move on to the
next step in reading. The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension, and the
next step in reading is reading to learn. This lesson focuses on summarizing, a
strategy to help students begin to read to learn. This lesson will help students
learn to summarize by teaching them to delete trivial and redundant information
and focus on the important parts of a text.
Materials:
Class
set (including one for teacher) of the article "Unsinkable Ship"
from National Geographic Kids. American Chemical Society
(2003)
Blank
bookmark shaped like a ship (for each student)
Markers
(1 pack per group of students)
Poster
with summarizing rules (1. Delete unimportant or repeated
information 2. Find important information 3. Write a topic
sentence)
Overhead
projector
Pencil
and paper (for each student)
Class
set of “Soaring into Summarizing” (including one for teacher)
Assessment
chart:
Did the student? |
Yes |
No |
Get rid of unimportant information? |
|
|
Get rid of repeated information? |
|
|
Underline important information? |
|
|
Write an organized topic sentence using only the
important information? |
|
|
Procedure:
1. “Today we're going to talk about a strategy to help us comprehend what
we're reading. Who remembers what it means to comprehend? (Call
on student.)That's right! It does mean
to understand the message of what you're reading. The strategy we're going to
learn about today is called summarizing. Summarizing is kind of like giving a
recap of what's in the text. Summarizing is a great way to help you understand
and remember what you read.”
2. “Before we learn more about how to
summarize, let's review what we've been talking about lately. Who can tell me
what we've been talking about in social studies? (Call on student.) That's
right! We have been talking about the
oceans and travelers traveling the different oceans to head to different lands.
Now let's review some of the vocabulary we've talked about recently. Yesterday
we said that a voyage is a course of travel or passage, especially a long
journey by water to a distant place. You could say, "Christopher Columbus made a
very long voyage." Which of these could be a voyager? A ship, a couch, or a
tree? (Call on student.) That's
right! A ship could be a voyager because it takes people long distances across
oceans and seas. Yesterday we also talked about ships. We said that a ship is a
very large vessel, that is oceangoing and can be propelled by either sails or
engines. You could say, "The ship sailed across the ocean." Which one of these
would be considered a ship? An airplane, a sailboat, or a bicycle? (Call
on student.) That's right! A ship is
like a sailboat, and we use this to take us places across waters.”
3. “Now that we've reviewed our
vocabulary, let's go back to talking about summarizing. (Display
summarizing rules poster.) You all
have ship shaped bookmarks and markers on your desks. I want you to copy down
each rule as we talk about it, and then at the end of the lesson I'll give you
all a few extra minutes to decorate your bookmark. The first rule of summarizing
is to take out the unimportant or repeated information. Go ahead and write that
down. (Allow writing time.) This
means that if you see something that's not really important for the meaning of
the text or something that you've already marked as important, you may draw an X
through it (if it's a separate article like the one we're using today) or
mentally delete it (if it's in a textbook). The second rule of summarizing is to
find important information. Go ahead and write that down too. (Allow
writing time.) This means that when
you see something that you think is important to know you should underline it or
maybe write down a key word or phrase. The third rule of summarizing is to write
a topic sentence. Write that on your bookmark. (Allow writing time.) This
part is a little trickier, and we will practice it together in a moment, but it
means that once you've picked out the parts of the text that are important you
combine them to create a sentence. This sentence captures all the important
parts of a paragraph within a text.”
4. Pass out copies of "Unsinkable Ship," and display a copy on the overhead
projector. “Now we're going to
practice summarizing as a class. Let's look at the first two paragraphs of our
article, just because the first two are pretty short:”
He's looking for anything that could be in the way of the speeding ship. Fleet
is excited. Titanic is sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, from England to
New York City. This is her first voyage, but already she is famous.
In 1912, Titanic is the largest man-made moving object in the world. She
is as long as four city blocks and wider than a four-lane highway. Some people
say she is unsinkable.
“I want everyone to be following along with me and paying attention to how I
follow these rules. Let's look at the first sentence:
In the crow's nest high above Titanic's
deck, a lookout rubs his hands to stay warm.
Do you think it's important to know this fact? (Discuss.) Sometimes
the first sentence of the paragraph lets us know what the article will be
discussing, in this case it does, but I don’t believe this sentence is of any
importance to us because it doesn’t give us any information. Let's keep reading:
The night is clear and cold, so Frederick Fleet struggles to stay warm.
Hmm... What parts of this sentence are important for my understanding? I think
the part about it being cold outside, so I will underline that.. I'll make an X
through everything else in that sentence because nothing else is important to us
yet. Let’s move on…” He's looking for anything that could be in the way
of the speeding ship. Fleet is excited. Titanic is sailing across the
Atlantic Ocean, from England to New York City. This is her first voyage, but
already she is famous. “Since it says
it’s her first voyage and the Titanic is sailing across the ocean from England
to New York City, I'll underline that because this was obviously a very
important new voyage. Let’s keep reading, because we are just now getting to the
important information.” In 1912, Titanic is the largest
man-made moving object in the world. She is as long as four city blocks and
wider than a four-lane highway. Some people say she is unsinkable. “Okay…let’s
see, the text gives us a date, do you feel that is important information for us?
I don’t think so, sometimes it’s important for us to know the dates in history,
but in this case and learning to summarize this information isn’t any help to us
(Put an X through the date). Also, the sentence says that the Titanic is the
largest man-made moving object in the world; I think that this could be a very
important fact for us. The key words here would be “largest in the world.” Then,
the text goes on to tell us how long and how wide the ship is, do you think that
this information could be important to us? I don’t, only because this doesn’t
matter, the author of the magazine is only trying to grab our attention so that
we are more interested in the article, but the author does say that some people
thought the ship to be “unsinkable”. I think that this could be some very
important information to us, mostly because it is a part of the title as well.”
“So now that we've applied rules 1 and 2 of summarizing to this paragraph I'm
going to demonstrate how to use rule 3 and create a topic sentence using the
parts I underlined. I've got night-clear and cold, first voyage, Titanic,
largest man-made object in the world, unsinkable ship. Now I need to make this
into a sentence that makes sense. On a clear, cold night the Titanic set sail on
its first voyage; this ship was known as the largest man-made object in the
world and also to be unsinkable.”
“Does everyone understand what I just did? Does anyone have any questions?”
5. “Now I'm going to let you all
practice summarizing with the rest of this article. I want you to go through
each paragraph and break it down like we just did. Be sure to follow the rules
for summary and then change the order around in your topic sentence if necessary
so that it makes sense. I want you to write a topic sentence for each paragraph
in the article. You may just copy the sentence that I wrote for paragraph one,
and then you will write four more topic sentences of your own. When you are
finished, staple your article to your paper with the topic sentences and turn it
in. Then you may decorate your bookmark. You will all have time to decorate your
bookmark, so please do not speed through the assignment just to have time to
color.”
Assessment: I
will review each student's topic sentences as well as the markings on each of
their articles. I will use the assessment checklist for each student listed
above to know whether each student followed the rules and understood how to
summarize accordingly. Their sentences for each paragraph may vary slightly, but
a good topic sentence for the second paragraph might be: Many wealthy people
were aboard this ship, but the fleet was on board keeping a lookout for any
danger that may come into place such as an iceberg.
References:
“Unsinkable Ship”
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/1204/articles/mainarticle.html
“Soaring into Summarizing”-Mary Kathryn Wheeler
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/wheelerrl.htm
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