Summarizing Into Space!

Rationale: The ultimate goal of reading is to develop comprehension skills. This lesson is meant to introduce students to a helpful strategy known as summarization. By learning how to summarize, students will be able to mentally delete redundant and trivial information and focus on the most important information. This lesson helps students learn how to find those main ideas and key detail in a text by having the teacher model summarization and then giving time for independent practice. The students will be assessed on their summarization skills through comprehension questions.

Materials:

Paper
Highlighter
black marker
sample passage on board (excerpt from “National Geographic Kids: What is a Planet?”)
classroom copies of full article “National Geographic for Kids: Asteroids”
rubric for summarization

Procedures:

Say: “Have you ever read a book that you really liked and wanted to tell a friend about it? What did you do? Did you read them the entire book? (wait for student response) Or did you get them a brief account of the story, focusing on the important details? Does anyone know what we call that strategy? It is called summarization. Summarization is a very helpful strategy to use to help comprehend and understand what exactly we are reading. In order to be an expert reader, we must be able comprehend what we have read. The best way to check our comprehension is by summarizing.”
Say: We are going to read an informational passage together and I’ll show you how to summarize what the author is talking about. Because we have just started our Space unit in science, this passage is about planets! Can anyone tell me the names of some planets in our Solar System? Can someone remind me how many planets there are in our Solar System? Very good. Let’s read to learn what makes a planet a planet. Follow along with me as I read out loud.” [Show 2nd paragraph from Nat. Geo. Article- excerpt below]
Say: Wow that was a lot of information. Can anyone tell me the main idea from that passage? [Call on different students to hear different ideas. Write main points on board.] “Let’s take a look at the passage again. I am going to highlight the most important details I see, and I’m going to cross out information that is not as important. This will help me keep my facts straight and the main idea in mind.”
Explain: “To review, the first sentence usually tells us what the paragraph will be about, but when it doesn’t, we can use the rest of the information in the passage to create our own topic sentence. The first sentence here happens to tell us the main idea: we will be learning what classifies something as a planet. The article then makes it clear that this is a question most people never even think about, even though we’re living and breathing on a planet right now. This is an interesting point, but it doesn’t contribute to the main idea. Then the author explains what made scientists start thinking about the qualifications something should have to be a planet- because there were other bodies of rock floating in Space that were bigger than Pluto, scientists asked “If all these large bodies are in Space, how do we determine which ones are planets and which are not?” The important piece to take away from this section is that the discovery of other bodies in Space led to the creation of the three conditions for planet-hood. Finally, the most important part of the passage are these three rules for planets. Great! Now we have successfully picked out the important details of the passage and crossed out the less important parts.”
Say: “Now it’s your turn to try summarizing on your own. I am going to pass out a National Geographic article about asteroids. Remember those extra bodies of rock floating around in our Solar System they talked about in that passage we just read? Some of those are asteroids, and this article will tell us more about what an asteroid is. I am going to give you a black marker and a highlighter. As you read, highlight the details you think are important and contribute to the main idea of the text. You should use the black marker to cross out any information you don’t think is as important to the main idea. Remember, the main idea of the story is to tell you facts about asteroids. For example, what they are made of, how big they are, or how many there could be. There might be some parts of the passage that are interesting, but that does not necessarily mean they are important for the main idea.”
Say: “Before you read, I want to review what a few of the words in the passage mean because you might not have seen them before.” [Write words on board, with example sentences for students to reference when reading.]
1. Say: “Let’s learn what the word “rubble” means. Rubble is the remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up. Rubble is anything that is a big mess, such as rocks or dirt or broken pieces of something. Which of these would be considered “rubble”: a neat stack of laundry or a pile of cards from a fallen house of cards? Right, the pile of cards. Now see if you can finish this sentence for me: When the building was knocked down, it left a pile of rubble made up of…. [Take various answers. Possible answer: bricks]
2. Say: “Now let’s learn what the word “roving” means. Roving means moving about aimlessly without having a destination. Which of these could be considered roving: driving to the doctor’s office or leisurely walking around the park? Right, walking in the park. Now see if you can finish this sentence for me: The cattle were roving about the open field… [Take various answers. Possible answer: aimlessly, carelessly]
Say: “When you’ve finished reading and marking the article, I want you to summarize it in 5 sentences or less. Remember to begin your summary with a topic sentence, a sentence that tells the reader what the main idea is. Only include important ideas and details in your summary. Don’t include anything you crossed out, only the parts you have highlighted. Write in complete sentences and use correct punctuation. The most important thing to remember is to write in your own words, you should not copy what the author said word-for-word.
Say: “Okay, let’s get started reading our articles and summarizing them.” [Allow 20-25 minutes for students to mark article and write a summary.]

Assessment: To assess student learning, ask comprehension questions about the reading. After asking questions, collect students’ articles and summaries.

Questions:

1. Why do most asteroids never come close to hitting the Earth?

2. Based on your knowledge of where asteroids came from, what do you think they are made up of?

3. Critical thinking: Why do you think an asteroid hitting the earth might have caused the extinction of dinosaurs?

Rubric for summaries:

Student name:

Date:

Student clearly read article all the way through and used information from different paragraphs: ___/3

Picked out important information using methods taught in class: ___/2

Deleted unimportant details: ___/2

Wrote a short paragraph accurately summarizing the most important details from article: ___/3

Total points: ___/10

Comments:

References:

Piper, Anna. Super Summarization

https://annamariepiper.wixsite.com/readingdesigns/reading-to-learn

Murray, Bruce. Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/AboutPointRL.html

National Geographic Kids magazine. Asteroids. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/space/asteroids/#asteroid-belt.jpg

National Geographic Kids magazine. What is a Planet? http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/space/what-is-a-planet/#planetary-lineup.jpg