LESSON FOUR: Summarizing

LESSON DESCRIPTION

Students focus on summarizing. Students learn to use a Rule-Based strategy to summarize. Students incorporate their note-taking strategies (learned in previous lesson) and the Rule-Based strategy to summarize two nonfiction articles. Students are asked to write a single paper that summarizes information from two sets of notes taken in Lesson Three.

GRADE-LEVEL EXPECTATIONS

W3D       Summarize two or more articles and write a brief informational paper integrating supporting information form both sources

LESSON MATERIALS

§         Source of Literature

§         Supplies 

• Two passages and graphic organizer from the previous two lessons are used.
• Overhead projector
• Chart paper
• VCR or DVD player

§         Handouts provided

§         Words to know

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT                 Assessment

Students use two sets of notes generated from Lesson Three to write a single paper summarizing the information and integrating both sets of notes.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

1.        In groups, identify skills needed to survive an adventure. After creating a list, groups pick the three most important skills. A representative from each group present his/her group’s top three. Create a master list and the class votes on the top three. The class discusses how picking the most important items is actually summarizing the opinion of the group.

2.        To effectively teach summarizing, use the Rule-Based strategy highlighted in Marzano’s Classroom Instruction That Works (Chapter 3, page 32).  The Rule-Based strategy is a set of steps or rules used to produce a summary. These are the four basic steps:

1. Delete trivial material that is unnecessary to understanding.
2. Delete redundant material.
3. Substitute superordinate terms for lists.
4. Select a topic sentence, or invent one if it is missing.

Write the rules on a board for discussion or prepare a PowerPoint presentation. Show students an example of information that has been summarized using the Rule-Based strategy. There are several examples in Marzano’s book, Classroom Instruction That Works.

3. Watch with the class parts of two episodes of adventurous television programs or movies. Have students take notes on the main points and summarize the episodes from the notes using the Rule-Based strategy. Students will need to focus on the sections of the programs or movies that are examples of adventure. Students write a paragraph discussing how media can be adventurous citing each summarization from the media as examples.

4. Independent: students use the two sets of notes generated from Lesson Three to write a single paper summarizing the information and integrating information from both sets of notes (from two passages read and studied in Lesson Three).