Galloping into Summarization!

By: Catherine Wiley

Rationale: Within this lesson, students will learn how to gather information from texts by reading expository texts. Students must learn to read fluently, but following that skill they must learn how to comprehend the stories and information that they are reading. Summarizing expository texts enhances students’ comprehension, and requiring students to summarize a text that they have read allows for the teacher to properly assess their understanding of what they read. It is vital that students learn how to summarize texts using the important details and information, while leaving out the trivial information. This lesson will allow for students to practice summarization and comprehension without the use of trivial details and information.

Materials:

Rubric for grading summaries

Comprehension questions

Individual article about horses for everyone in the class

Pencils

Papers

Highlighters

Smartboard

Procedures:

1. Say: “Hello class! Today we are going to work on summarizing what we read and practice this by reading and summarizing a text about horses. When we summarize a text we describe the text by only using the key details and important information in the text, and leave out the information that is not as important (trivial information). I have carefully selected an interesting article about horses for everyone to read. Now remember, we are only focusing on the important information in the article and leaving out the information that is not that important.”

2. Say: “Okay now I am going to hand you all sheets of paper that I have already folded into four sections. Please open up your paper and under the top left square write “Definition”, in the top right square write “Example”, in the bottom left square write “Non example”, and finally in the bottom right square write “Own Example”. Lastly, in the middle of the four squares please write “Horses”. I have written all of those words on the board if you have any trouble spelling them.”

3. Say: “Now I am going to explain why we made this sheet of paper and are going to use it. Each of these squares will be a step that will help you to summarize the article that you are going to read about horses, which is why “Horses” is written in the middle because it is the main topic of the article! After reading, you will write the definition of horses in the top right square. In the top right square, you will write an important example that you found of horses in the article. In the bottom left square, you will write a non-example of horses from the article. Finally, in the bottom right square, you will write your own example of horses. We will end the activity by writing one topic sentence about horses on a separate sheet of paper. In a topic sentence, you will write the main idea of the article followed by a few key details. Can anyone guess what our main idea is? [Wait for response] Good job, it is horses! We will use our worksheet that we created to help us remember important information about summarizing.”

4. Say: “I am now going to pass out the article about horses to everyone in the class. We will read the second half of the article together as a class, and you will all follow along as I read and underline what you think are key details in the text. Has anyone ever ridden a horse? Awesome! Does anyone know what horses eat? Wow! Well, now we are going to read the article about horses in order to find out more fun information about them!”

5. [Reading along and demonstration on the smartboard] Say: “I am now going to read the second half of the article with you all. I am going to start where it says “What do horses eat?”. We can highlight the first sentence, “Horses are grazing animals and mostly eat hay and grasses” because that is key information about horses that we would like to know. We can cross out the sentence, “A pony is just a small horse” because this is not that important and does not support our main idea about horses. I will continue to read the second half of the article and you all will individually highlight what you think is important as you read along. Please raise your hand if you have a question or need help.”

6. [Ask students what they think the main idea is] Say: “Correct! The article talks about horses and all about them!”

7. Say: “Now we will fill out our worksheet by using the information that we read in our article about horses in order to identify the definition, an example, a non-example, and our own example about horses. Try your best and summarize the best that you can. I will walk around the room if anyone has any questions or needs any help!”

8. [Walk around the classroom] Say: “Everyone is doing an awesome job on the four box worksheet! Once you have read the entire article and finished the worksheet, I would like for you to please write a topic sentence with the main idea about the article. Then, please write a short summary about the article under your topic sentence. This little summary just needs to include the key details and information that you highlighted in the article. Underneath your summary, please write any vocabulary words that you did not recognize in the article. Write a sentence for each new vocabulary word that you learned.”

Some possible vocabulary words:

· Breed

· Major

· Feral

Assessment: I will assess students with a rubric that I created to use while I evaluate their summaries.

Rubric:

· Write a topic sentence including the main idea? YES/NO

· Write 3-5 good sentences with key details? YES/NO

· Remove trivial information? YES/NO

· Write new vocabulary words under their summary? YES/NO

· Write one good sentence for vocabulary words that they did not know? YES/NO

Comprehension Questions:

· How did horses first help humans? (For transportation, moving humans around)

· What are the three types of horse breeds? (Hot bloods, cold bloods, and warm bloods)

· What do horses eat? (Hay and grasses)

· How do horses sleep? (Standing up or lying down)

References:

Brown, Katie. Sprinting into Summarization: https://kyb0004.wixsite.com/mysite/reading-to-learn

Ducksters Education Site, Animals for Kids: Horses: https://www.ducksters.com/animals/horse.php