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"Summarizing with sea turtles"

A Reading to Learn lesson

By Morgan Anderson

 

Rationale:

            In order to become expert readers, our ultimate goal is to comprehend the information we are reading. One strategy that helps a reader to grasp the meaning of the text is summarization. Summarization is the process the reader takes to highlight all the important details and main ideas of the text to be able to construct a summary of the information. This lesson is designed to instruct students on how to summarize text (using a highlighter to mark important details) to be able to gain reading comprehension. The teacher will model brief summarization steps and guide them in deleting trivial and redundant information to find the important parts of the reading. Students will practice developing summarization as well as developing their reading comprehension skills in reading short passages while being assessed using the summarization checklist rubric.   

 

Materials:

·       Summarization Rules [poster]

1. Leave out unimportant information

2. Leave out repeated information

3. Pick out important information

4. Create the topic sentence

·       Paper

·       Pencils

·       Highlighters

·       “Green Sea Turtle” printed articles (from National Geographic Kids) [for each student]

·       “Green Sea Turtle Facts” printed articles (from National Geographic Kids) [for each student]

·       Summarization Checklist Rubric (for teacher use; attached below)

·       SmartBoard

·       Turtle cut outs

·       Comprehension questions (written on the board)

Green Sea Turtles: 

 1. Why do are green sea turtles considered the largest species of hard shelled turtle?

 2. What kind of diet do green sea turtles have and what are some of the things they eat?

 3. How do baby sea turtles make it to the ocean?

 

Green Sea Turtles Facts: 

1. Describe the carapace of the Green sea turtle.

2. Why are they called “green” sea turtles?

3. Explain why turtles go to certain beaches to lay eggs and what those beaches are called.

 

Procedures:

 

1. Say: “Today we are going to learn to summarize to become expert readers. Summarizing text helps us to better comprehend what we are reading. Can anyone tell me what it means to summarize when you read? [student responses] That’s right! When a reader summarizes the text, he/she reads a passage or part of a text, is able to take the most important details and main ideas, and uses that information to retell what the story or passage was about. Do we mention every detail in the passage we read? [student responses] No! We only mention the most important details and main ideas, leaving out the unimportant small details. Summarizing texts helps us to comprehend the information. Does anyone know what comprehend means? [student responses] To comprehend something is to be able understand what your reading and the meaning behind the story.”

 

Review with students the summarization checklist [on poster]

 

1. Leave out details that are unimportant or trivial because that information does not help us understand the text to summarize.

 

2. Leave out details that are repeated because that text has already been used or seen and will lead to confusion.

 

3. Pick out important information from the text because those important details and main ideas will help us to summarize the text to comprehend the message of the text.

 

4. Create a topic sentence that tells us what the text is about and mentions the main ideas presented in the text to introduce your summary.

 

2. Say: “Now, before we dive into summarizing, we are going to go over some vocabulary because we have to understand what words mean before we can comprehend the text’s message. Looking at the first green sea turtle article, let’s look at the first sentence that contains the word species. The sentence reads, ‘Green sea turtles are the world’s largest species of hard-shelled sea turtle.’ This sentence tells me that species has something to do with all turtles. Species means a group of animals who are all kind of alike but different. So there are many different species of turtles but today we are talking about green sea turtles. it is important that we understand what species means. So, would a dog be a type of species related to turtles? [student responses] That’s right! Dogs and turtles are not alike so they are not the same species. Another passage of text also has one of our review words—plankton. The sentence says, ‘The first few years of a green sea turtle’s life are spent floating at sea, where they feed on plankton.’ Does anyone remember what plankton are? [student responses] Plankton are tiny living things that float in the ocean. Plankton is made up of plants, animals, and organisms. When we did our unit on whale sharks, we learned that they also eat, what? [student response] That’s right! Whale sharks also eat plankton.”

 

3. Say: “Now, we are going to read an article on green sea turtles. [Teacher pulls up article on the SmartBoard and passes out the article to each student] Let’s read the article silently and discuss it together. [Teacher and students read the article.] Some of my student helpers that have finished reading are passing out turtle cut outs. [Cut out distributed] When you have finished reading, you can write down our Rules of Summarization from our poster on your cut out to help you remember the steps on how to summarize and mark your place in a book. I will go over the rules of summarization briefly again before our discussion. [Teacher discusses summarization rules again] I’m going to show you how I would summarize the third paragraph of the article on green sea turtles by following our summarization steps, making sure to highlight important information with our highlighter and cross out unimportant or repeated information with our pencil. First, we are supposed to leave out unimportant information. I would leave out the part of second sentence that says how many seconds they come up for air and go under water that is a trivial fact and is not important to summarize. Second, we are supposed to leave out repeated information. We don’t have any repeated information so we will skip that step and move on. Third, we pick out important information to include our summary. The first sentence contains important information on where turtles spend most their time, and the last sentence discusses another place turtles spend their time other than under water. My passage should look like this when I highlight important information and cross out unimportant or repeated information:

 

Green sea turtles spend most of their lives underwater, where they can rest for up to five hours at a time before coming up for air. When active, they typically alternate between being underwater for a few minutes and coming up to the surface to breathe air for a few seconds. Green sea turtles are also known to sunbathe on land. 

 

Then I would use my highlighted important information to construct one topic sentence on what I read in the passage. Ask yourself, “What is this passage about? What is the main idea?” My topic sentence would say, “Green sea turtles spend most of their time under water, but can come up on land and sun bathe.”

 

4. Say: “Now I want you to try to summarize the fourth paragraph of the green turtle article. I will be walking around to help you and feel free to ask your classmates for help as well. Make sure you follow the summarization steps listed on the poster and on your bookmark. Use your highlighter to mark important text and use your pencil to cross out unimportant or repeated texts. From your important text highlighted, construct one topic sentence on what the passage was about. When you finish, share your summarization process (along with reasoning to support decision) and your topic sentence with a partner. When everyone finishes, we will discuss our findings with the class. [Students complete task.] What did you cross out as unimportant information? [“unlike most sea turtles” is not important] What did you highlight as important [Plant based diet, gives their fat a green color] What was your topic sentence [Sample topic sentence: Greens sea turtles fat is colored green from their green plant based diet.] Your marked paragraph should look similar to this:

 

Unlike most other sea turtles, adult green sea turtles eat a primarily plant-based diet consisting of seaweed and sea grass. Scientists believe these green foods give the sea turtle’s fat its green color. The shell of the green sea turtle is usually shades of a brown or olive color. 

 

Go ahead and finish marking the rest of the article, construct a short paragraph with a topic sentence to go over the entire article, and answer the comprehension questions. These tasks will help you to practice summarizing some more. Make sure you use complete sentences and correct punctuation when you write your sentences. I will be walking around the classroom to help if needed. We will discuss our summarization steps, paragraph with our topic sentence on the entire article, and answer the comprehension questions (1. Why do are green sea turtles considered the largest species of hard shelled turtle? 2. What kind of diet do green sea turtles have and what are some of the things they eat?

3. How do baby sea turtles make it to the ocean?). [Students complete tasks. Teacher aids activity. Class discussion is presented and important ideas are written on the board.]”

 

5. Say: “To finish up our lesson on summarization, I am passing out our next article titled ‘Green Sea turtle facts’ from National Geographic Kids. This article tells more interesting facts about green sea turtles that out previous article didn’t tell. I want you to read the entire article, use the steps of summarization on the poster and your bookmark to guide your highlighting important information and crossing out unimportant or repetitive information, and construct a paragraph on the entire article using the highlighted information with a topic sentence. Use the answers to the questions of ‘What is this article about? What is the purpose of this article? If I told someone about this article, what would I say?’ Answer the comprehension questions (1. Describe the carapace of the Green sea turtle. 2. Why are the called “green” sea turtles? 3. Explain why turtles go to certain beaches to lay eggs and what those beaches are called.) and complete the finish the sentence exercise on the board: Green sea turtles are endangered because ­­­­­­­­­­____________. Remember to use complete sentences and correct punctuation.

 

6. For assessment, I will collect the student’s articles with markings made, paragraph with topic sentence, and comprehension question answers. The summarization checklist rubric (table below) will be used to assess the paragraph students wrote on ‘Green Sea Turtle Facts’ on the following criteria: constructing a simple topic sentence, delete unimportant information, delete repeated information, include supporting details, and constructing a summary that includes the main ideas.

 

 

Summarization Checklist Rubric:

     

When summarizing, did the student…                            

Construct a simple, topic sentence?    yes/no

Delete unimportant information?        yes/no

Delete repeated information?               yes/no

Include supporting details?                   yes/no

Construct a summary that includes the main ideas?          yes/no

 

References:

 

Green Sea Turtles:

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/green-sea-turtle/#green-sea-turtle-closeup-underwater.jpg

 

Green Sea Turtle Facts:

https://www.natgeokids.com/au/discover/animals/sea-life/green-sea-turtle-facts/#!/register

 

Johnson, Miss. “Summarizing a Whale of a Tale”.

http://mej0029.wixsite.com/miss-johnson-lesson/learn 

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