Parker VanDurand's Lessons
Glowing with Summarization
Rationale: When a student is able to comprehend the reading, they are going to be a more successful reader. This means the student no longer has to decode the text and can discuss what is happening in the story. We will practice summarization in this lesson by detecting and marking out repeated information or facts that are not important, finding and highlighting important information, and forming a topic sentence from the important points in the text that were highlighted.
The teacher will model how students can detect important information that is needed to write an effective summary.
Materials:
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Paper for each student
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Pencils for each student
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Highlighters for each student
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Black colored pencil (or something to mark
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Individual copies of the article: “Times for Kids: Nature’s Bright Lights”
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Passage Sample on SmartBoard from “Times for Kids: Nature’s Bright Lights” (First paragraph)
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Rubric for summarization
Procedures:
1. Say: “Ok class today we are going to talk about summarization. Can anyone tell me what it means to summarize a story? Summarizing is taking the most important information from a story and putting it in your own words. Just to give everyone an idea about some important information that is commonly included in a summary we are looking for: main ideas, important characters, important facts, or really things that a character does depending on what you are reading. When you are summarizing you are leaving out the things that are not that important. We can use summarization to make a long article or book easier to remember by only giving the main points.
2. Say: “I have given you an article from Times for Kids about Nature’s Bright Lights. The lights they are talking about are actually fireflies! Today we are going to investigate this story and as we read the first paragraph together I want us all to look out for only the important details. Since we are reading the first paragraph together I am going to help us all summarize before we do it on our own. So, as investigators, let us all pay attention to the main points of each sentence and highlight things you think are important
3. Say: “Ok now that we have read our first paragraph who can give me a summary of that paragraph we just read?
First Paragraph: "Have you seen a firefly glow? Fireflies are bioluminescent. That means they make their own light. “It’s like a flashlight or a lightbulb,” Hans Waldenmaier told TFK. He studies glowing mushrooms in Brazil. But bioluminescence can be found all around the world." (Nature's Bright Lights).
(Give a few different students a chance to share their summary, write down some of their main points on the board). Put up smartboard copy of the paragraph with highlights made. Say: “Okay so I think the sentence about Fireflies being bioluminescent is important because it looks like they use the word "bioluminescent" a lot. I will highlight it, but cross out the part about Hans studying glowing mushrooms because it is not as important. This helps me keep my facts straight and focused on the main idea. Okay, can some friends help me with the next paragraph?
4. This looks like an important detail. How many glowing creatures live in the ocean? Wow! About 80% of glowing creatures live in the ocean!!
5. Say,” Let’s review, the main topic or the first sentence of the paragraph will tell us what the paragraph is going to be about. The first sentence talks about how some animals can glow due to this big word, bioluminescence. I highlighted this because it’s an important detail. We do not need to know that plankton glisten with every wave because we know that they already glow, so I crossed that out. When I crossed this out, I thought before I act: ‘Is this fact necessary?’ and then I crossed it out because it is unnecessary in helping me understand glowing animals?
6. Say, “Now that we have reviewed I am going to give each one of you a pencil and a highlighter. As you read the article, highlight details that you think are important and contribute to the main idea of the story. Take the black colored pencil and cross out the details that you think are unimportant and do not contribute to the main idea of the story. The main idea of this story is to give you more information on glowing animals, so pick things that really answer Who?, What?, When?, Where?, or Why?.
7. Say,” For the next activity after you have finished marking your story I want you to summarize the story in 5 sentences or less. Remember only to include the details you highlighted, not the ones you crossed out. Write in complete sentences and watch your punctuation and spelling. But remember to rephrase all of your own highlights, we do not want to copy the text.
8. Say, “But before you read let’s all review some vocabulary from the article so that when you come across these in the article you have an idea of what they mean!” (Write the list of words on the board and provide the students with example.
9. Bioluminescence: The ability for an animal to make their own light. When a firefly glows at night, they are bioluminescent. Everyone, write a sentence using our new word! Also, answer the question, What animal do you know is bioluminescent?
10. Say, “When everyone finish with the vocabulary lets work on some summaries.” (Allow 20-25 minutes to write their summaries.
Assessment:
1. What makes animals glow?
2. What percentage of glowing animals live in the ocean?
3. Which animals sparkle at the waters surface?
Rubric:
Student Name:
Date:
1. Student clearly read article completely and used information from different paragraphs.
____ / 3
2. Picked out information using methods taught in class.
_____ / 2
3. Deleted details that were not important.
_____ / 1
4. Wrote a short paragraph summarizing most important details from the article.
____ / 4
Total Points and comments:
______ / 10
References: Nature’s Bright Lights. https://www.timeforkids.com/g2/bioluminescent/
Clark, Katie. Swimming Like Marlins into Summarization. https://mkc0026.wixsite.com/katieclarkslessons/reading-fluency-design
