Racing into Summarization

Rationale:

This lesson focuses on teaching students about reading to learn. Students need to be able to comprehend texts which includes the ability to summarize. A great way to summarize is by using the “about-point” method. This method asks students two critical questions about the texts. The first questions is “what is the text about” which identifies the topic and becomes the subject of the topic sentence. The second questions is “what is the main point the writer is making about that topic”, this is a deeper questions and makes the student “superordinate’ the points and find an umbrella term that covers all the main points that the author is making. The main point becomes the predicate of the topic sentence. The students will use the “about-point” method and the teacher will give helpful tips and strategies.

Materials:​

Pencils

Projector

National Geographic Kids Cheetah Article

Summarization checklist 

Comprehension quiz

Procedures:

1. Say: Everyone think about a time that they wanted to tell their friend about a book you read. When you are telling the story, do you say every single detail, or just the main important parts? Just the important parts, right? Yes, this is called summarization. Summarization is when you take all of the important information from the passage to make a quick understanding of what happened or what you read.

2. Say: A great and helpful method that you can use to help your summarization skill is the about-point method. When using this method, the reader will ask themselves two important questions: ​What is the text about? What is the main point the writer is trying to make? Asking these questions will help the reader pick out the important parts of the text.

3. Say: Today we are going to read a short article about cheetahs. Ask: Has anyone ever seen a cheetah? Do you know what a cheetah looks like? What kind of animal is a cheetah? (class discusses these questions) Lets read the article and see what we know about cheetahs!  

 4. Say: Before we start reading and summarizing the article, we need to learn about a new word and making sure that everyone knows what it means. The unfamiliar word is prey. The word prey means an animal that is hunter and killed by another for food. An example of the word in a sentence is, “When a cheetah is hungry, it looks for its prey.” You turn…Can you use the word prey in a sentence?

5. Say: Now that we have learned the meaning of our unfamiliar word, lets read the article summarize using our about-point method. (Pass out a copy of the article to each student) I will demonstrate how to use the method first and then yall can try. (Pull up the first paragraph of the article on the board at the front of the classroom). Now, let me show you how I use the about-point method to summarize the first paragraph.

“Fastest mammal on land, the cheetah can reach speeds of 60 or perhaps even 70 miles (97 or 113 kilometers) an hour over short distances. It usually chases its prey at only about half that speed, however. After a chase, a cheetah needs half an hour to catch its breath before it can eat.”

After reading, I am going to decide a topic. The way that I decide a topic sentence is by combining the information that is referenced several times with multiple examples in the paragraph. I will combine and consolidate the main points that were referenced within the paragraph into one complete sentence. The first paragraph talks about how cheetahs are the fastest mammal on land and then backs the statement up by saying they can reach speeds of 60 mph, it uses its speed to catch prey, and it has to catch its breath after speeding. Now that I have picked out the main point that cheetahs have great speed I will consolidate it into to ine main sentence. The sentence that I summarized for the first paragraph is: Cheetahs are one of the fastest mammals on land and use their speed to catch their prey.

6. Say: Now you will finish reading the article and use the about-point strategy to make a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, you will have made a good summary of the article, which will help you remember important facts about Cheetahs. You are writing a short version of the article in your own words, including only the important ideas to remember. After summarizing the article, After you finish we will all take a quiz to see what you remember about the article. 

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Assessment: 

Collect each student’s summary of the article and then use the assessment checklist to evaluate.

__ Collected important information

__ Ignored trivia and examples in summary.

__ Significantly reduced the text from the original

__ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph

__ Sentences organized coherently into essay form.

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Quiz:

1.  Why are cheetahs considered to be the fastest mammals on land?

2. How do cheetahs use their speed to their advantage?

3. Do you think that cheetahs would have a hard time catching their prey if it weren’t for their speed?

Resources: 

National Geographic Kids, Cheetah: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/cheetah

Kaye, Arnold; Slowly Summarizing with Sloths https://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/awakenings/