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Reading to Learn

 

 

The Wonders of Summarization
by Regan Weakley
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Rationale:

Summarization is a powerful strategy for comprehending text. Summarization involves deleting trivia and redundancies to reach important ideas, generating superordinate terms for lists, and composing topic sentences that capture the gist of the text. In this lesson, students will practice the useful summarization strategy about-point. About-point is effective and memorable because the students must first answer the question, “What is the text about?” Then, students will answer the critical summarization question, “What is the main point the writer is making about the topic?” In this lesson, the teacher will explain summarization to students, model how to summarize, review vocabulary, and provide students with their own opportunity to summarize an expository text.

 

Materials:

                                          

Procedures:

1. Say: “If you were going to read a text, it would be nearly impossible for you to remember every single word and detail! Good readers don’t try to remember everything; instead they summarize what they read in order to get the gist of a text. A key summarization strategy we will be using today is called about-point. In about-point, after you read a paragraph, ask yourself two questions to help make a topic sentence. The first and easier question is "What is the text about?" The tougher question is "What is the main point the writer is making about that topic?" To answer this question, you have to think of an umbrella term for all the important points the writer is telling you.

 

2. Say: “I am going to show you how I’d do about-point with one paragraph from the article y’all will read today, called The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. Have you ever heard of the seven ancient wonders of the world? Do all seven still exist? Where can we go to see these wonders? Why were they created? These are just a few of the questions you will be able to answer after today’s reading.”

 

3. Say: “First, let’s discuss an important vocabulary word you’ll read in today’s text: ancient. Ancient means to belong to the very distant past. If something or someone is ancient, it existed a long time ago or may not even exist anymore. COVID-19 would not be considered ancient, since the illness showed up in 2019. Let me show you how to use ancient: This word describes a noun. For example, if I saw a worn scroll dated back 1,000 years ago, I would know it was very old, making it an ancient artifact. What is something you know that is ancient? Are we ancient? Are your grandparents ancient? Finish this sentence: I’m glad dinosaurs are ancient because…”

 

4. The text we are going to read today discusses the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World! Here is a paragraph from the story:

 

The Greeks also added a couple of their own structures on the list of ancient wonders. The Statue of Zeus was built in Olympia, Greece in 457 B.C. This statue was built to honor the Greek god Zeus. The statue was as tall as a four-story building! It was made of wood and decorated with gold and ivory. Unfortunately, the statue was destroyed by a fire and no longer exists for us to see.

 

This paragraph is about the Statue of Zeus, but what important points is the writer making? In the past, the Greeks made an ancient wonder, the statue of Zeus, to honor the god. The statue was large, wooden, and decorated, but no longer exists since being destroyed by fire. Putting these points together, I can make a topic sentence: In the past, the Greeks made a large, honorable Statue of Zeus that can no longer be seen since being burned down.

 

5. Now I want you to use about-point on a paragraph:

 

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are unknown to many people because most of these structures were destroyed so long ago. While it is sad people cannot see most of these wonders in person, the detailed stories about them help people know how special they were.

 

What’s this paragraph about? Yes, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. What are the main points the author is making about the wonders? Correct, people don’t know about the seven ancient wonders because most of them were destroyed. Yes, another point is there are detailed writings about them that let us know how amazing they were. How could we combine those ideas in one sentence beginning: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World …? [call on students] Answer: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are not well-known since most of them were destroyed, but people know how special they were due to detailed stories from the past.

 

6. Have student get out a piece of paper and pencil. Say: “Now I’d like you to read the entire article and use about-point to write out a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, you will have made a good summary of the article in the form of a complete paragraph. This will help you remember important facts about the seven ancient wonders. Don’t summarize examples or trivia; they are written only to help you understand the main ideas. You are writing a short version of the article in your own words, including only the important ideas to remember. We will have a quiz after everyone finishes writing to make sure you remember.”

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Assessment: Collect each student’s summary of the article, and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist:

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__ 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 did the Greeks choose seven wonders?

2. Which of the ancient wonders still exists today?

3. Why did the king build the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

4. Why did the Greeks build their two statues?

5. What is a mausoleum?

6. What practical use was the Pharos of Alexandria built for?

7. Why are the seven ancient wonders of the world unknown to so many people?

 

References:

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