Lisa Buckley (Kittelman)

TEED 521

February 22, 2005

Guided Literacy Focus Lesson, 6^th grade

Summarizing with Spider Mapping to Build Comprehension

Learning Target: Skill/Process

Students will be able to find the main points and important details in an article.

Washington State EALRs:

EALR 2 The student understands the meaning of what is read.

Component 2:1 Demonstrate evidence of reading comprehension.

GLE 2.1.7 Apply comprehension monitoring strategies during and after reading: summarize grade level informational text and literary narrative text.

Assessment Strategies: Pre- and post- assessment tools will help to evaluate how well students have met the learning target. As a pre-assessment tool, I will observe the notes students have been taking for their power point presentations. This will give me a good indication of how they currently pull out the main points and supporting details of text. Does it look like they are copying text word for word or are they writing information in their own words. Can they identify the main idea and supporting detail? As a post-assessment tool, I have developed a self assessment rubric for student use as well as a rubric I can use to identify if they have met the learning target. Using two sets of evaluation tools helps me to understand more of how students feel they are functioning. Every child is different and my expectations for them are based on their prior level of understanding and learning. (See Rubrics p.6-7)

Grouping for Instruction: The direct teaching lesson and modeling will be taught to the whole class. During the independent practice students will work in groups of five to develop a spider map.

Lesson:

• Anticipatory Set: I will tell the students that instead of reading aloud this afternoon, I am going to mime a story for them. Students will be expected to watch and listen closely because I will ask them to tell me what the story was about when I am done. After the students retell the mimed story, I will explain to them that my purpose was to get them to tell me the main idea and supporting details of the story in their own words and that we are going to practice identifying these in non-fiction text today using a strategy called spider mapping.

• Lesson Introduction: “Often times, after we are read an article or story, we are asked to be able to retell or recall what happened in the writing. I can remember times in junior high and high school when my social studies teacher asked me to retell what the main ideas were in a social studies chapter. I also remember discussing the main points of a novel I read in my English class. Retelling the main points of a story in your own words is called summarizing. I know you are all familiar with summarizing, because I have seen you write summaries for your book jackets. Today, we are going to use a technique call spider mapping to organize the main points of an article. Practicing identifying main points and details of text for all types of genres is important. It helps you remember information and prevents you from plagiarizing or copying someone else’s ideas. Besides, no one can remember everything they read. So getting the main idea is important for recalling information, especially for tests, oral speeches or essay writing. It is important to distinguish important facts from unimportant ones. I think you will find this strategy useful and helpful in middle school and in your education and professional work beyond middle school.

Today we are going to read and identify the main points and details of an article together to learn the spider mapping strategy. I am also going to have you work in groups to map a different article. By the end of the lesson, you will have a better understanding of identifying main ideas and supporting details.”

• Input/Modeling the Strategy: “I want you to listen to how I think out loud as I read the article, Amelia Earhart. The spider map will be my guide as I find the main points and details of the article.

I will follow these steps;

• Write the theme or topic of the article first
• Read the article, paragraph by paragraph, slowly looking for main ideas that support the theme/topic
• Reread for clarity
• Highlight main ideas that refer to the topic
• Write main ideas on spider map
• Go back through the article to find important details that support each main idea
• Write details on the spider map

First, I want to write the topic of the article in the middle of the spider map. The topic of this article is Amelia Earhart. I know this just by looking at the title. Titles and subtitles often tell us about the theme and main ideas of text. I will write this on my spider map.

As I read slowly, I want to be looking for the main ideas about Amelia Earhart. I will highlight the most important ideas about her life. (Read first paragraph.) Hmm! I not quite sure what the main idea is, I need to go back a reread. This paragraph talks about Amelia’s childhood and family. I need to read on to see if there is any more information about her childhood and family. (Read on) This paragraph talks about her schooling. Schooling happens during childhood. Amelia’s childhood and family will be my main idea. Let’s place this on the spider map. I know this is a main idea because the sentences in these paragraphs all have childhood and family in common. (Place this on the spider map.) What details support this main idea? Her family is one detail. This includes her mom and dad, Edwin and Amy, and her sister, Muriel. This is a detail because it directly relates to her childhood and family. I don’t think that the fact that her parents split up is that important since we are focused on Amelia’s life. I will leave that out. It is too elaborate. We want to be specific. Remember, we can’t write everything down. I think another important idea is that she took up nursing because of her chance meeting with the hurt soldiers. I will add nursing as a main idea on the map too. That is good. Why do you think this is a main idea and not a supporting detail of family and childhood? It doesn’t really have anything in common with her family or her childhood. It is important to her life though.

Now I can read on to see if there are details to add to the first two main ideas or to see if there is a new main idea. (Read two more paragraphs.) The idea of flying is used often in these paragraphs, another common theme. I think this will be my next main idea. It is important to Amelia’s life. Now let’s see about details that support how flying is part of Amelia Earhart’s life. Her first ride in a plane over Los Angeles made her realize that she wanted to be a pilot. This is very powerful and important to her flying because this sparked her interest in flying which she continued to do for years. I will add this as a detail. I need to reread the second paragraph to find out if I should add another detail. (Reread.) Yep, I think I want to add that she worked several jobs for flying lessons. (Add this as a detail.) This shows that she liked flying so much she would do anything to be able to do it.

• Guided Practice: Now I want you to help me out with the remainder of the story. Let’s read the last four paragraphs and see what main ideas and details we can add to the spider map. Amelia was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. She set record time flying over the Atlantic and Hawaii to California. She founded an organization of women pilots called “ninety-nines.” During her last flight, the Coast Guard lost track of her plane and found no trace of plane or passengers.

Now that you have had seen how the spider map strategy helps identify the main points and supporting details of text, I want you to practice. I will walk around the class and help you if you get stuck.”

• Independent practice: Students will work in groups to apply the spider mapping strategy to a new article. Groups will be arranged so that they are heterogeneous. Low level students will be grouped with high level students as well as girls with boys and students of different ethnicities.

• Informal Assessment: During the group work, I will walk around the classroom listening to groups’ discussion of the article. I will be able to assist groups if they need more help with the strategy. I will also be able to assess whether students need more individual help.

• Debriefing: The next day in class, I will show examples of some of the completed spider maps to the students. I will ask students to tell me what aspects of the maps were good and what parts need more work. We will make a list on the overhead projector.

The class will discuss how the strategy worked for them. We will also discuss steps they used as they tried out the strategy on their own. Finally, I will ask students to tell me why the strategy helps them and when they would use it.

Rationale: What’s important and what’s not? Students in grades six through eighth grade explore this question. It is important to distinguish important facts from unimportant ones when taking notes for tests and also when writing summaries. One of main reasons for deciding to teach this activity to sixth graders was to give them practice summarizing non-fiction text and taking notes. Once they transition to the middle school setting, note taking will be an important part of their education. Currently, students are working to gather information for a power point presentation. This strategy will be useful for them as they research relevant ideas and facts to place in their presentation.

Family Interactions: Bi-weekly progress reports in student achievement are sent home with students throughout the school year. I will indicate on the progress report how their child is progressing in literacy.

Planning for all Students: Students are culturally and academically diverse. I think that it is important to account for this in all lessons that we teach. This lesson particularly accounts for the learning of all students including students with learning challenges and cultural differences. I have used modeling as a means of showing, not telling students how spider mapping works. I believe that showing student visual ways of organizing new ideas helps them better understand new concepts and ideas. This also makes ideas more concrete for learners. The graphic organizer I have included in the lesson aids visual and spatial learners. Finally, I have broken the lesson up into small segments to keep students engaged. I also group students in a variety of structures throughout the lesson to benefit students who work better individually and others who work better in groups. They work as a whole group 1/2 of the time and in small groups’ 1/2 time. Students will be evaluating their own work. They will also have time to debrief how the lesson worked for them. This will give me an idea of what worked and didn’t work in the session for students so that I can account for it in the next lesson that I teach.

Main ideas and supporting details

Pre- Assessment

Students Name	Main ideas are stated in students own words and refer to the topic of the text.	Supporting details are relevant to the main idea	Uses key vocabulary (Y or N)	Text words or student words (T or S)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

Spider Map Rubric

Student’s Name ________________________________________

	Does not meet expectations	Meets expectations	Exceeds expectations
Spider map	Contents of spider map don’t follow a pattern. The main ideas and supporting details don’t relate to one another.	Spider map’s contents such as the main idea, supporting detail and central theme are organized correctly.
Vocabulary	Limited amount of vocabulary is identified on the spider map.	Uses vocabulary from the text to identify main ideas and supporting details
States the Main Idea and supporting details	Has limited information regarding important details and events from the text. Copies information.	Able to retell the main ideas of the text, including important details and cause and effect relationships. Uses their own words.
Effort	Little effort shown. You could use your time more productively.	You worked hard from start to finish. You showed pride in doing well.

Self-Assessment Rubric

Name____________________________________________________

Group members___________________________________________

Number of points for my summary________________

Rationale for this rating

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Points:

4 points: My spider map includes main ideas, relevant details, and no elaborative details. It is briefly stated in my own words.

3 points: My spider map includes main ideas and relevant details, briefly stated in my own words.

2 points: My spider map includes main ideas and relevant details, but uses the exact language of the text.

1 point: My spider map includes main ideas and relevant details, but also has elaborative details. It uses exact language of the text.