Swimming into Summarization
Rationale: Once students have mastered reading fluently, they will need to learn how to summarize texts. Summarization uses an effective method called about-point. In this method, there are two critical questions that are asked about the text. They are: 1.) What is the text about? 2.) What is the main point the writer is making about that topic? The first question is helping students to identify the topic, which will be the subject in the topic sentence. In the second question, has students pull out the main important umbrella point from the many points the author makes. This umbrella point will become the predicate in the topic sentence.
Materials:
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Copy of the National Geographic Beluga Whale article (URL below)
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An overhead with the two paragraphs from the article
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Paper and a pencil for each individual student
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Summarization checklist
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Comprehension quiz for each student.
Procedures:
1. Say: You all know when you read a story how excited you are to tell every single detail and event that happened? (let students nod or answer) Well, that would take way too long to try and remember all those details of a story or article. We all want to be awesome readers, which means we need to learn how to use this process called, summarization. Summarization is used to remember the important details or points that the author makes about the topic. When we use summarization, we are able to take a text that is filled with many, many words and make it small enough to get the key points as an easy way to remember.
2. Say: Did you all know that there is one way to summarize that is the best one to use, it is called about-point. This strategy is where you ask yourself two questions, one that is pretty easy: “what is the text about?” and then you ask one that is a little harder: “what is the main point the writer is making about that topic?”. In order to answer the harder question, we have to think of an important umbrella point from the many different ideas the author is writing about.
3. Say: I am to show you all how to do about-point summarization with a chunk of our article on beluga whales. Some of the questions you all will be answering today are: How many of you, by a show of hands, have seen a beluga whale before? (let children answer, by raising their hands) Do you all know what type of things they eat? Do you all know where they live? Do you know why they migrate? Do you know what kind of sounds they make?
4. Say: An important vocabulary word you all will be reading about is the word migrate. Migration is what they do when the sea freezes over. It means they move somewhere else in a group. For example, beluga whales, along with a few other animals, migrate when the location they are gets too cold and they move somewhere warmer. Finish this sentence: Migration is a process in which…
5. Say: Here is a paragraph from our article (show paragraph on the projector):
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Belugas generally live together in small groups known as pods. They are social animals and vocal communicators using a diversified language of clicks, whistles, and clangs. Belugas can also copy a variety of other sounds.
This paragraph is all about how beluga whales live together and how they communicate, but what are some of the important points the author is making? Beluga whales live in pods and they are very social. They also have their own language of clicks, whistles, and clangs. They can also copy sounds. I can put these different points together and make a topic sentence: Beluga whales live together in pods and communicate using clicks, whistles, and clang sounds.
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6. Say: Now I want you all to use about-point on a paragraph:
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These whales are common in the Arctic Ocean's coastal waters, though they are found in subarctic waters as well. Arctic belugas migrate southward in large herds when the sea freezes over.
What is this paragraph about? (let students answer) That is right! This paragraph talks about where they live. What are the main points the author is making about where they live? (let students raise their hands to answer) Awesome job boys and girls! The whales in the Arctic Oceans coastal waters. They are also found in subarctic waters too though. The whales also migrate south in large herds when the sea freezes over. How do you all think we could put those ideas together to make a topic sentence? Beluga whales in live the Arctic Ocean’s coastal waters and subarctic waters but when it freezes over, they migrate south. Great work class!
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7. Say: You all are going to finish reading the article and using the about-point method to make your topic sentences for each paragraph. Remember to leave out trivia, because we don’t need to summarize that. When you all have finished you will have made your first summary of an article. This will help you remember the really important facts about beluga whales. You all are writing a short version of this article in your own words, with important ideas to remember. There will be a quiz when everyone finishes writing their summaries.
Assessment: Collect every student’s summary and use the checklist to evaluate their summarization.
___ Student gathered important info from the article only
___ Student has topic sentence for each paragraph in the article
___ Students left out summarization of trivia knowledge
___ Student significantly reduced the text from the original article forming a summarization
___ Student has organized the topic sentences into an essay form
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1. What is the name of the group called that Beluga whales live in?
2. Where do the whales migrate to?
3. Are the beluga whales related to narwhals?
4. Describe the types of sounds they can make?
5. How many feet long can they be?
6. Describe where you can find beluga whales.
Reference:
Cora Blue, Swimming to Summarization https://clb01016.wixsite.com/corab19/reading-to-learn-rl
Resources: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/beluga-whale
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