Summarizing
with Eeyore
By: Naomi Lewis
Rationale:
Summarization is an important part of learning to read and
comprehending what
you read. It is important that students learn how to identify the main
idea and
points in an article or story so that they will know what materials
might be on
a test and so they don’t have to try to remember everything in the
article. In this lesson, the teacher will demonstrate some summarizing
skills
and then the students will be given the opportunity to summarize an
article on
their own.
Materials:
- A
copy of “The History of Pooh”
for each student
- A
copy of “A.A. Milne” for each student
- A main idea
worksheet/graphic organizer for each student
- Pocket
Chart Displayed on the board with the following
categories: Title, Main Idea, Details, and Conclusion
- Sentence
strips (pre-filled out with the information
needed to complete the pocket chart)
- Notebook
paper and pencils for each student
Procedure:
- “Today we
are going to learn a new skill to use
when we read. It is called summarizing. Does anyone know what it means
to
summarize?” Call on a few students to answer. “That’s
right, summarizing is when we read a book or article and look for the
main
ideas or the most important information. That is what we are going to
be doing
today.”
- “When we
read our article in a minute I want
everyone to read silently to themselves. Does everyone remember when we
practiced reading silently? How did we do it?” Call on someone to
answer. “That’s right, we read with our eyes but not out
loud.”
- “Now I am
going to pass out an article about
“The History of Pooh” and a worksheet that has a space for the
title, the main idea, the details, and the conclusion. I want everyone
to read
the article silently and then we will divide into groups of two and
fill out
the worksheet. When you are looking for good details it may help to
remember
the five questions we can ask: Who, What, Where, When, and Why.”
- “We are
going to talk about our answers as a class
now so everyone return to your seat. Who can tell me what the title of
our
article is? Right, The History of
Pooh.”
Place title in pocket chart “The main idea of the article is: How
the Winnie the Pooh stories were written. The details I find in
the story
are:
Winnie
was originally a black bear who lived in
the London Zoo.
A.A.
Milne’s son Christopher Robin loved the
bear at the zoo so much that he named his teddy bear Winnie the Pooh.
Milne started to write books about his
son and his stuffed animals: Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore,
Tigger, Rabbit, Piglet, Kanga, and Roo.
Milne and
his family lived on a farm and this is what the
100-acre woods is based on.
The
Pooh-books were very popular with Walt Disney’s
daughters and he was inspired to bring Pooh to life.
-Great job!
Now all we need is a conclusion. The conclusion
summarizes everything into one clear sentence. I will write this one
for you so
you can see: Winnie the Pooh is a series of stories based on a real
bear
cub, stuffed animals, and a farm which are now world famous books and
movies.
Assessment:
-Now I am going to hand out one more article.
This one
is about A.A. Milne, the author of Winnie the Pooh. I want you to take
it home,
read it, and write a short summary of the article for homework. It only
has to
be one paragraph long and make sure that you include the title, main
idea, any
details that you think are important, and a conclusion. Make sure that
you do
not copy the article but put it in you own words. A summary is usually
shorter
than the real article. I will be taking this up tomorrow morning for a
grade.”
When grading the paper, look to see if the students have a title,
main idea,
at least three details, and a conclusion.
References:
- Foster, Ridey (2005) Sensational
Summarization http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/constr/fosterrl.html
-Thomas, Gina
(2004) Stormy Summarizing
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guides/thomasrl.html
- The History
of Pooh, http://www.just-pooh.com/history.html
- A.A. Milne,
http://www.just-pooh.com/milne.html
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