Focus Plan
Texarkana Independent School District
GRADING PERIOD: / 1st 6 Weeks / PLAN CODE: / R7.1.4Teacher: / Ables / Course/subject: / English Language Arts
Grade(s): / 7 / Time allotted for instruction: / 3-4 class periods
Title: / Summarizing: Heart of the Matter
Lesson TOPIC: / Summarization
TAKS Objective: / Objective 1
The student will demonstrate a basic understanding of culturally diverse written texts.
FoCUS TEKS and Student Expectation: / 7.10 Reading/comprehension. The student uses a variety of strategies to comprehend a wide range of texts of increasing levels of difficulty. The student is expected to:
(G) paraphrase and summarize text to recall, inform, or organize ideas (4-8).
Supporting TEKS and Student Expectation: / 7.10 Reading/comprehension. The student uses a variety of strategies to comprehend a wide range of texts of increasing levels of difficulty. The student is expected to:
(H) draw inferences such as conclusions or generalizations and support them with text evidence [and experience] (4-8).
Concepts / Enduring Understandings/Generalizations/Principles
The student will understand that
Summarizing / Summarizing is how we take larger selections of text and reduce them to their bare essentials: the key ideas and the main points that are worth noting and remembering.
Summary / A summary consists of the main idea and the crucial details of a paragraph or selection.
Paraphrase / Paraphrasing is when you use your own words to tell what you’ve read, heard, or seen.
I. Sequence of Activities (Instructional Strategies)
A. Focus/connections
This skill lesson on summarizing would be used in conjunction with the introduction of the thematic reading unit Where the Heart Is (Glencoe, pp. 324–427). To introduce the theme, first provide time for students to reflect on the people and places that are most important to them. Ask students to free write, using the topic, “Within My Own Heart.” After a timed free write, lead a discussion based on the student writings. Explain the connection to both the thematic unit and to the skills lesson, Heart of the Matter.
B. Instructional activities
(demonstrations, lectures, examples, hands-on experiences, role play, active learning experience, modeling, discussion, reading, listening, viewing, etc.)
1. Using the Transparency Packet: Heart of the Matter, define “summarizing.” Lead a discussion over the difference between finding the main idea and summarizing.
2. Explain the strategy of selective underlining. (See strategy below.) Model the process by doing a think-aloud with transparencies 2 and 3. Show students how all nonessential words and phrases are omitted. Reassure them that although it is difficult to judge what is essential and what is not, the more they practice, the more easily they will be able to select the essential parts of a passage.
3. Demonstrate how the key words and phrases can be used to write an effective summary statement (transparency 4). As you compose the summary statement, introduce the concept of paraphrasing.
C. Summarization strategies
Following are strategies that may be implemented throughout the year. Students should practice summarization often in order to master the skill.
1. Selective underlining (or highlighting): The way to make underlining useful as a tool for comprehension is for it to be strategic, selective, and purposeful. The underlining must be undertaken toward particular ends. With selective underlining, the idea is to underline ONLY the key words, phrases, vocabulary, and ideas that are central to understanding the piece. Students should be taught this strategy explicitly, should be given time and means to practice, and should be reinforced for successful performance.
2. Paring it down: Have students write successively shorter summaries, constantly refining and reducing their written piece until only the most essential and relevant information remains. They can start off with half a page; then try to get it down to two paragraphs; then one paragraph; then two or three sentences; and ultimately a single sentence.
3. The Paragraph Summarization Strategy: This strategy focuses on students reading one paragraph at a time, stopping at the end of each paragraph, and then asking some questions to find the main idea and supporting details. Students can tell someone what they think the paragraph is about, or they can write it.
4. The Section Summarization Strategy. This strategy focuses on students reading a multi-paragraph section that covers a topic. The student begins by raising questions about what the section might be about. As the students read, they are prompted to make one important summary statement about each paragraph; at the end, they answer the questions they raised as the beginning of the section, state or write a connected summary using the important statements recorded during reading, and then describe how this section relates to the preceding and following sections.
The emphasis of this level of instruction and practice is on the integration on multiple main ideas to identify the significance of the set of ideas as a whole. If the student has difficulty with making paragraph level important statements as part of section summarization, the student is not ready for section summarization. More instruction and practice in paragraph summarization should be provided.
5. The Multi-Section Summarization Strategy: This strategy focuses on the type of summarization that is required for report writing. As the student reads each section in a chapter or chapter of a book, he/she makes at least three summarizing important statements. This may not cover all the information in the section or chapter, but it should be enough to help the student remember what the section or chapter was about when the summary report needs to be written. If the report is based on chapters in a narrative text, the statements might focus on what happened at the beginning, middle, or end of the chapter. When the student has finished reading the text, a summary is created using the three importance statements. A paragraph with a topic sentence, at least three supporting sentences, and a closing sentence are created. If the student has trouble with summarizing for report writing, then more instruction and practice in section summarization is provided.
II. STUDENT PERFORMANCE
A. Description
1. Introduce the story “Antaeus,” p. 346. Tell the students that they will be using the short story to practice summarizing. Lead a class oral reading by calling on students to read aloud.
2. After the reading, divide the class into 8 groups or pairs. Assign each pair of students a portion of the passage. (The activity handout provides a suggestion for dividing the short story.)
3. Review the concepts introduced through selective underlining. Discuss how summarization requires a reader to distinguish between important, less important, and trivial information. A reader must make a judgment to determine the main ideas and supporting details of the paragraph or passage.
4. Part 1: From their assigned passages, students will make a list of the most important ideas. They also will identify some of the less important ideas from the passage. Students then will put their most important ideas together in a summary statement for their assigned passage.
5. Part 2: As each student group shares their summary statements, the class will record them on the handout. After all sections have been summarized, students will compose a summary statement based on the entire selection. In part 2, students complete the assignment as individuals, not as pairs.
B. Accommodations/modifications
In part 1, the shortest section has been designated for student pair group 4. This group assignment allows the modification of a shortened assignment.
C. Enrichment
Students who demonstrate a mastery of summarization should be assigned to determine a theme statement that would relate the short story to the unit title.
iii. Assessment of Activities
A. Description
1. Timed Free Write – Students are given 5 minutes to fill a page with their ideas. Mechanics and usage are not marked. The key is to have students record as many thoughts as possible as they brainstorm the unit topic.
2. Activity: What’s Important? – On part 1, students are evaluated in pairs or groups. On part 2 students are evaluated for independent work.
B. Rubrics/grading criteria
See attached rubric.
C. Accommodations/modifications
D. Enrichment
E. Sample discussion questions
1. What is the difference between main idea and summary?
2. How would you paraphrase this sentence?
3. How would you paraphrase this passage?
4. Why do you think this is the best summary?
5. What is this summary statement missing?
6. What is the main idea of this passage?
7. Which supporting details are crucial to the selection?
IV. TAKS Preparation
A. Transition to TAKS context
On both the 2003 and 2004 TAKS, the summarization question stem asks students to identify the best summary. On the 2003 TAKS, the answer choices all contained two sentences. On the 2004 TAKS, the answer choices all contained three sentences.
For this lesson, when all student pairs have written their summaries of the short story, have the class choose the best summary from the student writing.
B. Sample TAKS questions
1. Which of these best summarizes the newspaper article?
A The Navajo code talkers used their language to develop a code that kept U.S. military secrets safe from the Japanese and helped win World War II. More than 40 years later, a sculpture was created to honor their wartime contributions.
B Japanese code breakers created problems for the U.S. military during World War II. In the early days of the war, they used their familiarity with the English language to break U.S. codes and learn secret information about U.S. strategy.
C Philip Johnston, who had spent many years around the Navajo, thought the Navajo language would be useful for developing an unbreakable code. Johnston was one of the few non-Navajos who could speak the complex, unwritten language.
D When the U.S. government first revealed the secrets of the Navajo code, Navajo code talkers were not given any honor or recognition. The Vietnam War was one of many reasons the United States waited another 20 years to recognize the code talkers with a sculpture.
From Spring 2003 Grade 7 Reading TAKS
2. Which of these is the best summary of this story?
A When Héctor gets in trouble at school, his father tells him to clean the family’s garage. Héctor knows it will take most of the day. He wishes it were a school day so he wouldn’t have to do the work.
B Dr. Santos gets upset at his son, Héctor for not taking his math book to class. Later Héctor notices that his father has forgotten som important notes. Although he is a little upset with his father, he decides to take the notes to him.
C Dr. Santos teaches chemistry at a nearby community college. One day he forgets the notes he needs for a class review. His son Héctor knows that Dr. Santos won’t have time to drive back for the notes.
D Héctor takes a bus to the college where his father teaches. When he gets there, he can’t remember what room his father’s class is in. Then he hears his father’s voice coming from a nearby room on the second floor.
From Spring 2004 Grade 7 Reading TAKS
V. Key Vocabulary
Summarizing, paraphrasing, gist , main idea, trivial, allusion, theme
VI. Resources
A. Textbook
Glencoe Literature, Course 2, Where the Heart Is (Unit), pp. 324–427
B. Supplementary materials
§ Free Writing
§ Transparency Packet: Heart of the Matter
§ Activity: What’s Important?
C. Technology
vii. FOLLOW UP ACTIVITIES
(reteaching, cross-curricular support, technology activities, next lesson in sequence, etc.)
The title of this short story is a literary allusion from Greek mythology. Assign students to research the story of Antaeus and to present a brief summary of their research. They should be able to explain the connection between the Greek myth and this 20th century short story.
VIII. Teacher Notes
Selective underlining or highlighting can be an effective strategy in learning how to summarize. In order to get around the problem of textbooks that can't be marked in, you might try the following suggestions. In order to teach the strategy, photocopy a page or two out of the text that students use and distribute it to them. Make an overhead of that selection for yourself. Model for them and guide them in practicing the strategy on the photocopies. Alternatively, if you have enough of the materials available to you, give each student a sheet of transparency film, some paperclips, and some overhead pens. Let them practice directly on their texts by using the transparencies.
¨ Division of Curriculum and Instruction ¨ School Improvement Department ¨ Texarkana Independent School District