Lesson Plans - Summarizing Non-fiction Unit

Lesson Plans Lesson Part Formal/Informal Assessment of Prior Learning or Preassessment (Sequence start) Title Standard(s) Activity description/Teacher does Prior to beginning the summarizing nonfiction unit, a formal on-demand assessment (Assessment 1.1) was given to my entire class (26 students). After analyzing the assessments, I developed this Learning Segment to work with the 6 students who scored a ‘Beginning’ or a ‘Beginning/Developing’ on the rubric (Evaluation Criteria) I created. 17 of the students in the class scored a ‘Developing’ while 3 of the students in the class scored a ‘Secure’ on their assessment. After obtaining this data, I thought it would be best to do a pre-lesson (this Learning Segment) before we started our three-week whole class summarizing nonfiction unit to bring those 6 students up to at least a ‘Developing’. During the three-week unit, summarizing nonfiction is taken apart more than it is in this learning segment. Students do Students took a formal on demand preassessment on summarizing nonfiction to show their initial understanding. Students who scored a ‘Beginning’ or a ‘Beginning/Developing’ were given a three day mini-lesson to catch them up before the whole group lesson began (this Learning Segment). Lesson 1: Writing a Main Idea Sentence for a Summary of a Nonfiction Text Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. (RL.4.1) (DOK 1,2,3) Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text. (RI.4.2) (DOK 2,3) Central Focus (CF) Academic Language Learning Target Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above) (W.4.4) (DOK 3,4) The central focus for this learning segment is students will learn how to accurately summarize a nonfiction text through a sequenced learning segment that teaches students how to pull out a main idea, find supporting details that support the main idea, and pull together a conclusion to summarize a nonfiction text. Summarizing, nonfiction, fiction, main idea Students will learn how to complete the first step in summarizing a nonfiction text: write the main idea sentence. The learning target for this lesson is written on the white board (Instructional Material 1.1). I ask the students to read the learning target aloud and then think about what the learning target means. I will have an open discussion with students about the learning target and Students will learn about the first step in summarizing a nonfiction text: the main idea sentence. Students read aloud the learning target. Students discuss what the learning target means. Students activate prior knowledge from Instruction Inquiry Preview Review discuss the academic language. We will discuss what it means to summarize, what a nonfiction text is, and what a main idea is. As a group, we will discuss what these words mean. To help transition to the next activity, I will connect our prior writing unit about summarizing fiction stories, completed before Christmas break, to summarizing nonfiction texts. I will remind students that when they summarized fiction, they used a graphic organizer. I will show them this graphic organizer (Instructional Material 1.3) as well as the graphic organizer we will be using for summarizing nonfiction (Instructional Material 1.2). We will have an unstructured discussion about the similarities and differences of the two graphic organizers. I will scaffold students in their comprehension of summarizing a nonfiction text by building on lessons from our current writing unit (expository writing) and prior writing units (summarizing fiction). For a couple weeks now, we’ve been learning how to create an expository writing piece. We’ve been doing a lot of research on difference countries and recently we began writing down our research. We’ve been summarizing all of the nonfiction texts we’ve been reading about our countries and using this as our notes! Today, we are going to look beyond our expository writing and figure out the main idea of a nonfiction text and write a sentence to reflect our understand of the main idea. I will ask students to open up their interactive notebook and glue in the “Unlocking a Nonfiction Summary” lock portion (Instructional Material 1.4). This will already be cut out for them. We will discuss as a group how this is the graphic organizer for our main idea sentence when we write a summary of a nonfiction text. I will then pass out the list of strong verbs we can use (instructional material 1.5). This list also includes the framework for our sentence on it. Students can reference this interactive notebook throughout the Learning Segment (Instructional Material 1.7). At this time, I will also show students the anchor chart I created that we will be using and adding to previous lessons during the discussion when talking about summaries, nonfiction, and a main ideas. Students connect prior learning of summarizing a fiction text to new content (summarizing a nonfiction text). Students discuss the similarities and differences of the two graphic organizers. Students connect prior knowledge they’ve been learning about expository writing to summarizing a nonfiction text. Students glue the combination and the list of strong verbs in their interactive notebooks and look over the materials. throughout the learning segment (Instructional Material 1.8). I will explain to the students that any summary of a nonfiction text starts out with a strong main idea sentence. We want to be as accurate as possible in our summarizing, so we are going to read the text a couple times together. First, I want you to listen to me read the story while following along. I will read “It’s All About Attitude” aloud (Instructional Material 1.9), and glance up as much as possible, to make sure students are following along. Once I finish reading the text, I will ask students to give me a thumbs up if they know what the main idea is, a thumb sideways if they have an idea of what it is, and a thumbs down if they have no idea what the main idea is. This informally assesses student understanding of main ideas. I will then ask that a couple students share what they think the main idea is. We will come up with a group main idea together. We will then read the text aloud together, to make sure everyone understands why we chose that main idea. I will then model how to develop our main idea sentence using the framework provided and the text we read aloud. I developed a graphic organizer to help students with this portion (Instructional Material 1.6). Okay so we decided that the main idea of this text is how our attitude affects us. So using the framework on the strong verbs sheet, the combination from the Unlocking a Nonfiction Summary, and the graphic organizer I have I would say my main idea sentences should be something along the lines of: In the text “It’s All About Attitude”, the author describes how a positive attitude can have positive effects on a person’s life. After I finish modeling how to create a main idea sentence, I will ask students to give me a thumbs up if they understand how to use the framework to write a main idea sentence, a thumb sideways if they somewhat understand, and a thumbs down if they have no idea how Students will listen and absorb information as I talk about the main idea sentence. Students listen to the teacher reading the text, thinking about the main idea as the teacher is reading. Students will tell the teacher if they understood what the main idea of the text is by using their thumbs. Students will raise their hand and tell the teacher what the main idea is. Students will read the text aloud with the teacher. Students listen to the teacher modeling how to draft a main idea sentence. Students will use listening skills to observe how to draft a main idea sentence and start the summary of a nonfiction text. The teacher follows the framework so that the students know to follow the framework when doing it on their own. Students identify whether or not they understand how to use the framework for writing a main idea sentence using their thumbs. Practice Activity Support Informal Assessment Practice Activity Support Closure Assessment to use it. This informally assesses student understanding of how to write a main idea sentence for a nonfiction summary. Now that I have modeled how to write a main idea sentence, lets read another text and draft a main idea sentence together as a group. I will read “Adaptation Study: The Rabbit” aloud (Instructional Material 1.10), have a discussion with students and ask for input when drafting the main idea sentence. I will pass out the graphic organizer that has the combination and framework on it as well as lines for writing (Instructional Materials 1.6) and have the students write what I write on my copy. I will gauge students understanding based on their input into drafting the sentence as a group. Now that I have modeled how to write a main idea sentence, lets read another text and draft a main idea sentence of our own. I will read the “Titanic Predictions” aloud with them (Instructional Material 1.11). This is an appropriate accommodation because I am not assessing their ability to read the text. I want you to draft a main idea sentence on your own using what we just did and using the framework and combination I provided you with. I will pass out another copy of the graphic organizer for students to write their main idea sentence on (Instructional Material 1.6). This will be collected as one of their closing assessments. Once we are finished reading the text, I will prompt students to draft a main idea sentence using the framework on their materials and the combination. I will remind students that we want to identify the text, use a strong verb, and describe the main idea of the text. Once students are finished, I will have each student share what they came up with (Assessment 1.2). We will discuss what everyone came up with and make corrections where needed. I will also collect these. I will then give my students an Exit Slip (Assessment 1.3) and have them complete this. I will have the students turn the Exit Slip in and provide written feedback as well as look over them to assess student voice as well as assess if any students need further Students listen to the teacher read aloud the text and think about the main idea, getting ready to use the frame work to draft a main idea sentence. Students use the graphic organizer to write a main idea sentence as a group. Students give input into drafting the sentence and show that they are beginning to understand how to use the framework. Students listen to the teacher read aloud the story and listen for the main idea. Students understand that they are to write their own main idea sentence, with no support from their teacher or peers. Students use the paper given to them to write a main idea sentence regarding the text we read. Students listen to the teacher reminding them of the steps. Students read aloud what they wrote and get help from the teacher where needed. Students turn in their sentences to the teacher. Students turn in their Exit Slip to the teacher before leaving the small group table. intervention during intervention time. Title Standard(s) Lesson 2: Pulling out details from a text to support the main idea sentence Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. (RL.4.1) (DOK 1,2,3) Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text. (RI.4.2) (DOK 2,3) Central Focus (CF) Academic Language Learning Target Instruction Inquiry Preview Review Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above) (W.4.4) (DOK 3,4) The central focus for this learning segment is students will learn how to accurately summarize a nonfiction text through a sequenced learning segment that teaches students how to pull out a main idea, find supporting details that support the main idea, and pull together a conclusion to summarize a nonfiction text. Summarizing, nonfiction, fiction, main idea, supporting details, important details, interesting details Students will learn how to pull out the most Students will use what the important details from a nonfiction text relating teacher provides them to to the main idea and compose a supporting learn about supporting details detail sentence. and how to identify them. Yesterday, we were working on drafting a Students apply prior main idea sentence from a nonfiction text to knowledge of the skills they start out a summary. We are also looking into learned about summarizing the differences between fiction and nonfiction from the summarizing fiction and the similarities and differences of unit. summarizing fiction and nonfiction. Who Students think about the remembers the framework for writing a main framework for writing a main idea sentence? I wait for several students to idea sentence and answer raise their hands and then call on a few the teacher’s questions. students to give their input. Let’s look at our Students look at their interactive notebooks (Instructional Material interactive notebooks and the 1.7) from yesterday and our anchor chart anchor chart. (Instructional Material 1.8) to help remind us how to write a main idea sentence. Today, we are going to learn how to pick out the most important details from a nonfiction text that support our main idea sentences. Let’s look at the Learning Target written on the board today and read it aloud (Instruction Material 2.1). Students look at the Learning Target as the teacher points it out on the board. We read aloud the Learning Target and discuss the vocabulary presented in the Learning Target (important details, nonfiction, main idea, and supporting details). I will then give solid definitions of the vocabulary Students read the Learning Target aloud. Students take turns identify and defining the vocabulary presented in the Learning Target. Students presented so students can hear and use the accurate definition. I explain that we are going to use the same texts as yesterday, so we do not have to draft new main idea sentences. Instead, we will just review how to write main idea sentences and look over the ones we wrote already. When we are looking for important details in a nonfiction story, we want to look for details that support and go with the main idea. That is why we always write our main idea sentence before we look for the important details. Let’s take a look at the texts we looked at yesterday and the main idea sentences we wrote to go along with these texts. We will read aloud “It’s All About Attitude” again as a group (Instructional Material 1.9), and then I will read aloud the main idea sentence I wrote that I modeled for them the day before. Just like I did yesterday, I am going to show you how I would pull out the details from this text to support my main idea sentence. I will model my thought process aloud as students listen. I will pull out three key details explaining why I chose those details from the text and explaining how they support my main idea. Informal Assessment Practice Activity Support I will ask students to use a thumbs up if they understood how I got my details, a thumb sideways if they somewhat understood but could use more support, and a thumbs down if they did not understand. This will allow me to gauge how much more support each student will need. Now that I have modeled how to pull out important details, lets read “Adaptation Study: The Rabbit” again (Instructional Material 1.10), and see if we can pull out the important details together. Let’s read the text sentence by sentence together and use our green highlighters to highlight interesting details and our yellow highlighters to highlight important details. Who can tell me what the main idea sentence was that we came up with yesterday? The main idea sentence we came up with together was “In the text, Adaptation listen as the teacher clarifies the definition to the vocabulary presented. Students look over the main idea sentences we wrote the previous day and connect them to the texts we read yesterday. Students actively listen as the teacher explains how a main idea sentence connects to supporting details. Students take turn reading sentences in a circle. The teacher helps them with words they struggle with as they read. Students listen and follow along as the teacher models her thought process on picking out important details. Students put their thumbs up according to how they are feeling about picking out the details in a nonfiction text. One student will identify what the main idea sentence was from yesterday. Study: The Rabbit, the author examines how rabbits have adapted over the years.” Informal Assessment Practice Activity Support I have the students read the text sentence by sentence, taking turns. Once they are done reading the sentence, I ask the students if the detail was important or interesting in relation to the main idea sentence. I then have students justify their answer to make sure they understand the different between important and interesting details and how they relate to the main idea sentence. Once we are done highlighting, we will put the important details into our own words. We will pull out at least three important details as a group. I model again how to put all the information into my own words to make sure students understand. I will know students are understanding the lesson through our group activity of pulling out the details. Having students justify their answers when identifying whether a detail is important or interesting will show me they are understanding the lesson. To pull back in yesterday’s lesson, we will read a new nonfiction text and draft a main idea sentence and pull out at least three supporting details. Okay students, now that we have discovered how to find supporting details, lets read ‘Cesar Chavez’ and write a main idea sentence and find three supporting details as a group (Instructional Material 2.2). Let’s read the text aloud together. As a group, we will read the text together. Once we are done reading, I will have students think about what the main idea is. Okay, now tell me what the main idea of the text we just read is. I will prompt students to raise their hand so I can call on a few students. I will listen to what each student raising their hand has to say. I will summarize/clarify what each student says and come up with an “overall” main idea that combines all their ideas and relates to the text. I will ask who can tell me what my main idea sentence should be, reminding the students of the framework and combination we use to write a main idea sentence by pointing to the anchor chart I showed them the day before (Instruction Material 1.8). I will have students raise their hand and call on whoever raises their hand making sure to listen to each The students take turns reading the sentences. After each sentence, we identify whether the sentence was an important or an interesting detail and highlight it correspondingly. Students will contribute to the conversation and each justify at least one detail. Students will take turns reading the text. Students will raise their hand to identify what the main idea of the text is. Each student raising their hand will get an opportunity to contribute their ideas. Students will listen as I pull together all of their main idea sentences and combine them into one “overall” main idea. Students will raise their hands and say that we need to identify the text and author, use a strong verb, and then add in the main idea. students’ ideas and asking probing questions/providing feedback as needed. Okay now that we have come up with a main idea sentence together, lets read the text one more time so we can find appropriate supporting details to go along with our main idea sentence. I will read the text to you as you follow along and highlight the sentences with green for interesting and yellow for important. Once I am done reading, I will prompt students to circle the supporting details they found on their copy of the text. I will be looking over students work as they go as an informal assessment to make sure they are understanding the lesson. I will then ask students to share the important details they highlighted (yellow), asking probing questions such as “why did you think that was an important detail” as we go as well as provide feedback to struggling students. We will write the three most important supporting details on the bottom of the text as a group. Practice Activity Support Closure Assessment Okay, now that I have modeled how to find the supporting details, and we have found supporting details together, I want you to find the supporting details of the third text we did yesterday on your own (Instructional Material 1.11). I will read the text to you one more time (since I am not assessing my student’s ability to read, this is an appropriate accommodation for my low group). I will remind students that they are able to highlight before they list them at the bottom. I will also remind them that there should be three important details. I also remind students to make sure their three supporting details support the main idea sentence we came up with as a group the day before. The main idea sentence we came up with was “In the text, Titanic Predictions, the author sequences predictions people made before the Titanic crashed.” Once students are finished, we will go through the supporting details they came up with and I will collect their completed papers to go over (Assessment 2.1) and check for possible interventions needed. Students will also complete the Exit Ticket for the day and turn in I will read the text aloud to the students this time, making sure they hear a strong reader read the text so they can just work on comprehending the text. Students will be highlighting as I read so they can have the visual of the colors once it comes to writing out the supporting details. Students will share their highlighted yellow sentences aloud and contribute to putting the important details into our own words. Students listen as the teacher reads the text aloud. This will allow students to focus on the comprehension. Students highlight important details in yellow and interesting details in green as the teacher reads the text aloud. Students continue to work through their passages independently. Students will complete their supporting details and turn in to the teacher as well as complete their Exit ticket to show student voice and their understanding of this lessons (Assessment 2.2). Title Standard(s) vocabulary. Lesson 3: Writing a conclusion sentence based on main idea and supporting details Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. (RL.4.1) (DOK 1,2,3) Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text. (RI.4.2) (DOK 2,3) Central Focus (CF) Academic Language Learning Target Instruction Inquiry Preview Review Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above) (W.4.4) (DOK 3,4) The central focus for this learning segment is students will learn how to accurately summarize a nonfiction text through a sequenced learning segment that teaches students how to pull out a main idea, find supporting details that support the main idea, and pull together a conclusion to summarize a nonfiction text. Summarizing, nonfiction, fiction, main idea, supporting details, important details, interesting details, conclusion Students will learn how to draft a conclusion Students will use texts from sentence for a summary of a nonfiction text the previous day to learn how based on the main idea and supporting details to draft a conclusion found in the text. sentence. For the last couple days, we have been Students will use texts from learning how to find the main idea of a the previous day as well as nonfiction text and find the details in the text what they have learned from that support the main idea. Today we are the previous days (how to going to learn how to write a conclusion write a main idea sentence sentence to a summary of a nonfiction text and how to pull out based upon the main idea and supporting supporting details) to learn details. how to write a conclusion sentence that ties together their summary. Students read the Learning Let’s read aloud the Learning Target that’s Target written on the board today (Instructional Material 3.1). I will explain that a conclusion ties the whole paragraph together. I will also explain that a conclusion restates the main idea using the details from the text and reminds the reader of the topic and main idea of the text. Students will listen as the teacher explains what a conclusion does. I will prompt student to take out their copy of “It’s All About Attitude” (Instructional Material 1.9). I will explain that I am going to model how I will write a conclusion sentence based on the main idea sentence and the supporting details I modeled the days before. I will model while Students will listen and follow along as the teacher models how to tie together the main idea sentence and the supporting details to write a strong conclusion sentence. talking aloud all the steps I am going through to come up with a conclusion sentence. Informal Assessment Practice Activity Support Informal Assessment of Student Voice Practice Activity Support Informal Assessment of Student Voice Practice Activity Support Once again, I will ask students for a thumbs up if the conclusion sentence makes sense, a sideways thumb if they kind of understand, and a thumbs down if they don’t understand at all. Okay now that I have modeled how to come up with a conclusion sentence, lets come up with a conclusion sentence for “Adaptation Study: The Rabbit”. We have our main idea sentence and our details already. I will ask students to work with the person sitting next to them to come up with a conclusion sentence. I will make sure to listen to each pair and jump in and provide feedback as needed. I will regain student’s attention and have each pair read off their conclusion sentence. This will give students the opportunity to see there isn’t one set answer for summarizing. I will be taking notes on the students answers and seeing who might need additional help based on the answers they provided. Okay, now I want you to write a conclusion sentence for “Titanic Predictions” on your own. Let’s read the text and what we have for our summaries so far to remind ourselves of what we wrote. Once you are done, we will share aloud. Students will read what they wrote and again I will be taking notes on who didn’t quite grasp the concept. I will conference and have an intervention with that/those students independently to help them grasp the concept. Okay, now that we have pulled together the pieces of a nonfiction summary, let’s review from where we started. I will ask students to define what a summary is, what a nonfiction text is, what a main idea is, what supporting details are and how they vary from interesting details from the text, and what a conclusion is. This will tie in the academic language from each lesson. I will give each student a chance to speak and this will help me know that they understand the academic language involved with nonfiction summarization. Students will be informally assessed based on their selfassessment of their own understanding. Students will work with the person sitting next to them in order to come up with a conclusion sentence for the text we did together yesterday. They are provided a strong main idea sentence and strong, accurate supporting details to come up with the conclusion sentence. Students will share aloud their ideas and the teacher will be taking notes to see who might need additional support. Students will come up with the conclusion sentence for the final text we worked on the previous day on their own and share aloud when finished. Students will read aloud their conclusion sentences as the teacher makes notes for interventions. Students will define the terms associated with the learning segment. Informal Assessment Formal Assessment I will then go over and review how we created three complete summaries on the last three lessons. I will explain to the students that they can take everything they wrote on the graphic organizers and use it as their sentences for their summaries. I will also explain that on the assessment I will have them complete, that they will need to write out their summaries once they are done filling in the graphic organizers. I will then pass out the Exit Ticket for students to complete on their own. This Exit Ticket will show me that the students understand the vocabulary and academic language associated with this specific lesson as well as assess student voice using the smiley faces again. The smiley faces are used to ask students how they feel about the content they are learning. Now that we have gone through all the pieces of nonfiction summarization, I want to gauge your understanding of summarizing a nonfiction text. We will be completing an assessment on nonfiction summarization. The assessment will include multiple choice as well as a text to summarize. The multiple-choice questions are the same multiple-choice questions form our preassessment we took before we started going over this in our small group. The text will look very similar to all the texts we’ve worked with this week. It will be a nonfiction text and it will have the graphic organizer as well as the lines on the back to write a summary. I will pass out the assessment (Assessment 3.2) and read the multiple-choice questions and the passage aloud to the students because I am not testing their ability to read, but instead assessing their knowledge of academic language as well as their ability to comprehend and summarize the text. I will assess their understanding using the same rubric (Evaluation Criteria) I used for the preassessment (Assessment Material 1.1. Students will complete the Exit Ticket and turn it into the teacher. Students will listen to the questions and passage as the teacher reads it aloud. Students will complete the assessment and turn it into the teacher.