Donut Forget Summarization
Rationale:
Reading comprehension is the overall goal of reading which entails getting the overall message of a passage. To do this a reader can use summarization to get the message. In this lesson, students will learn to summarize a passage by highlighting the important information, crossing out the unnecessary information, and describing the passage in a few sentences.
Materials:
• Poster with summarization steps
• Thick sharpie marker & highlighter (for teacher)
• Highlighters (1 for each student)
• Notebook paper (2 pages for each student)
• Pencils (1 for each student)
• Summarization checklist (1 for each student)
• Comprehension quiz (1 for each student)
• Class set of Sweet: Inside a Bakery
Procedures:
1) Explain why summarization is important
Say: “Good readers do not try to remember every detail they read, instead they summarize. Summarizing is how we take large sections of text and reduce them to the most important parts: the gist, the key ideas, the main points, and remembering. Good readers use this strategy to remember the most important points from the author.
2) Hang summarization poster on board & review summarization steps:
Say: “We have to do three things when we summarize:
• 1st: Cross out any unimportant or repeated information (or fluff) that isn’t essential to the message of the text.
• 2nd: Find and highlight the important information that is essential to the text.
• 3rd: Form a topic sentence from the important information you highlighted.”
Say: “I am going to show you how I do these steps to summarize with a paragraph on bakeries which is the article that the entire class will read today.”
3) Book-talk:
Who all has a sweet tooth? (waits for a show of hands). Do you know how early bakers have to start preparing? Does anyone know what all they bake or what ingredients they use? You will know the answers to these questions today.
4) Teach the class about important vocabulary in the passage:
Say: “Understanding important vocabulary in the passage is very important for reading comprehension. Together, we are going to go over a few words that you will see while reading the article on bakeries.” [For each word: explain the word in simple language, model how to use the word (What does it mean? What doesn’t it mean?), provide sample questions using the word, and scaffold by making a sentence using the word for students to complete.
WORDS: apprentice, baguette, culinary, ingredients
Say: “Culinary is one of the words in your passage so let’s look at what it means. It means anything related to cooking or baking. For example, a culinary school teaches the art of cooking and presentation of food. A dental school, however, is not an example of culinary arts, because it is not related to cooking or baking. Which of these is an example of culinary? A firefighter training to be ready in the event of an emergency or a chef training to learn the art of cooking.
5) Modeling: Put page 20 under the document camera with a poster of the summarization rules. The teacher needs a thick sharpie and highlighter. Pass out bakery article to each student along with a highlighter and pencil.
Say: “This is a paragraph from our article. I am going to show you how I summarize this paragraph. You can follow along and do it with me on your paper. Let’s go back over the summarization steps:
• 1st step: Cross out any unimportant or repeated information (or fluff) that isn’t essential to the message of the text.
• 2nd step: Find and highlight the important information that is essential to the text.
• 3rd step: Form a topic sentence from the important information you highlighted.
First, I need to cross out any unimportant or repeated information. I can cross out the first sentence because sentence 1 isn’t important to the main idea of the paragraph. Next, I need to highlight the important information. I think that sentences 9-14 are important to the paragraph so I am going to highlight these.
Nuts for Doughnuts
“It’s a simple round cake with a hole in the middle.
But the doughnut is one of the bakery’s biggest sellers.
Doughnuts are made with a skinny piece of
dough in the shape of a ring. They are placed in hot
oil and fried. There are yeast doughnuts
and doughnuts made with cake batter.
Some have no hole in the middle
and are filled with jam or cream.
Not all doughnuts are round.
Some are long bars. Others
are twisted. They can be
topped with glaze, sprinkles,
chocolate, nuts, sugar—or just
about anything!”
The last thing that I need to do is form a topic sentence from what I have highlighted. (Write topic sentence below the paragraph on a poster so students can see):
Doughnuts come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, but what they all have in common is they’re one of the bakery’s biggest sellers!
6) Students summarize:
Say: “Now you use the summarization rules we discussed.”
“The morning is the bakery’s busiest time.
There is a lot of work to do before the bakery opens its doors for business.
By 4:00 a.m., bakers are measuring flour, yeast, water, and salt.
These ingredients combine to make bread dough.”
Say: “What information is not important so we can cross it out? (waits on answers from students) Yes, we can cross out the second and last sentences. So, what are we left with? (waits on answers from students) Right, we are left with the 1st and 3rd sentences. Let’s read these two sentences and see if we can combine them into one sentence to create a topic sentence:
Bakeries begin their morning before the sun even rises to measure ingredients for the day ahead.
7) Students write their own topic sentence:
(pass out 2 pieces of paper to each student for topic sentences)
Say: “I would like for all of you to finish reading the article and use our summarizing rules to make a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, you will have a good summary of the article. This will help you remember important facts about bakeries. Remember, don’t summarize the unimportant or repeated information. When you summarize you are writing a short version of the article in your own words while including only the important information. When everyone is finished, we will have a short quiz.”
8) Assessment: (Collect each student’s summary of the article and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist)
• Collected important information
• Ignored trivia and examples in summary
• Significantly reduced the text from the original
• The sentence brought ideas together from each paragraph
• Sentences organized coherently into essay form
9) Quiz: (Pass out a quiz to each student)
1) What time do bakers start preparing?
2) What ingredients make bread dough?
3) What sweet treat is one of the bakery's biggest sellers?
4) How are doughnuts made?
5) Name 5 foods that bakeries sell.
Answers:4 a.m.; flour, yeast, water, salt; doughnuts; with a skinny piece of dough in the shape of a ring; pastries, bread, cakes, cookies, pies
Resources:
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Lesson: Attia, Andie. Reading Genie. Swinging into Summarization. https://aka0029.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/reading-to-learn
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Book: Greathouse, Lisa. Sweet: Inside a Bakery. Time for Kids. https://www.jackson.k12.ms.us/cms/lib/MS01910533/Centricity/Domain/400/TFK_Sweet_InsideABakery_web.pd