Rationale: The goal of reading is comprehension. When student is about to comprehend a text, they’re able to learn. This lesson introduces students to a very helpful strategy called summarization. It helps them to read and understand the story better. Students will learn to remove unnecessary information in an article about extravagant red pandas. They will also collect the important information, predicates,  into a condensed topic sentence.

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Materials:

·   Article about Red Pandas from livescience for each group

·   Poster with the rules of summarization written on it

·   Pencil/Paper

·   Colored marker for each student

·   red panda picture

·   Projector/Smartboard

-   Poster Paper

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Procedures:

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1. Say: [Students in groups of four] “Who has read an article or book and told a friend about what you have read? Do you read them the whole book or just pull out important details from what you’ve read? (Ask students to answer). Exactly! You just tell them the important parts of the story! This is called summary, when you share the important parts from a story or article. Summarization is a helpful strategy that good readers use to help comprehend or understand what you are reading. If you can summarize, it is a good indication that you are able to understand what you have read.”

2. Say: “Everyone is doing so great! We’re going to talk about how to summarize in an effective way. Let’s take out a marker and a piece of paper. Turn the paper horizontal, like a hotdog, and divide it into three columns. Okay, the first rule in summarizing is to Delete the trivia, or unimportant information. We don’t want to keep information that repeats itself. Write this rule at the top of the first column on your paper. It can be helpful to cross out important information if you can mark on the article but in a book, you'll need to mental mark that certain part. I recommend marking the unimportant info with a pencil. This will help you to understand the message the author is trying to tell you. The second rude is to find the important information. Everyone, write this at the top of the second column, please. When you find something that is important in a book or article, you should highlight it so you can go back later and find it. The last rule of summarization is to make a topic sentence. Everyone write this at the top of the third column. Making a topic sentence isn’t easy because most texts don’t have topic sentences included. A topic sentence combines all of the important information in a short, condensed way so that you can summarize and understand the paragraph you’ve read.”

3. Say: “Now we will practice summarizing with an article about Red Pandas. When do you all think a red panda looks like? [Have a volunteer draw on the board from each group]. Alright, let’s see who’s drawing looks exactly like a red panda. [Show picture of red panda on smartboard] We don’t usually see red pandas here in the United States, and it’s because they have origins from a different part of the world. They are also crepuscular. This means they are active at dawn or dusk in the dark hours, so it would be hard to spot one in the day. Does anyone know of another animal that is crepuscular? [hopefully bat, if not say bat]. Bats are crepuscular; they are asleep during the day and active at night. So, in our drawing we may want to have a dark blue sky with the moon to show that red pandas are crepuscular. On the board, let's spell out crepuscular, /c/r/e/p/u/s/c/u/l/a/r/. Here is my sentence for crepuscular, the crepuscular red panda chomps on its bamboo at night. How could we be crepuscular? Let's all write a new sentence with the word, crepuscular; think of something that is crepuscular and describe its action. 

4. Say:[Pass out articles to each group and place one on smartboard] “Everyone watch as I use the rules to summarize this paragraph. Let’s read and look. (Repeat the sentence about beautiful) Do we think it’s important ? I think no, so I will write this under the first column on my paper and cross it out. However, I do think this sentence is important. It explains what the whole paragraph is going to talk about. I am going to write sentence number two under the second column. I will write this in my first column. Let’s look at the next sentence. (Repeat the next sentence) I think the important thing to know is. I am going to write this information in the second column for important information. In order to summarize, we cannot name all of the specifics or else we would have too much information. I am going to mark an X over the remaining information and write it in the first column. [Give teacher's own summary of passage]

5. Say: “Okay, now that we have finished the first paragraph let’s come up with a topic sentence. A topic sentence is one sentence that explains what the whole paragraph is talking about. I am going to look at the parts I have in column two for the important information. I have that: Red pandas are small fluffy mammals and very similar to raccoons, bears, and pandas; however, they are classified as bears with no living relative because of recent genetic research . Now that I’ve made a topic sentence from the important information, does anyone have any questions?”

6. Say: “Now I am going to give each of the five groups a copy of the article. I want us to jigsaw read these articles. So, one student will read the Size and Description part, another Habitat and Diet, another Offspring, another Habits and the last one will read Offspring & Classification. You will each write a topic sentence for your part, discuss to each other’s reading and topic sentence, and then write your topic sentences onto one paragraph on the poster paper.”

7. Assessment: I am going to look at each student’s poster papers to make sure they were successfully summarizing the paragraphs. I will use the assessment checklist to record each child’s grade. Topic sentences might vary but I will be looking to see if the child included the important information in each.

 

Comprehension Questions:

1. In regard to size, what house pet are red pandas similar to?

2. How do their tails help them climb trees?

3. Where do red pandas live and why do they choose to live there?

4. What is their habit if they are being attacked?

5. How long do cubs stay with their mothers?

 

Assessment Checklist:

Student Name: ___________________________?                                

1. Did the students come up with topic sentences for the remaining paragraphs?

2. Did the student successfully delete unimportant/redundant information?

3. Did the student successfully identify important parts?

4. Did the student use the important information to come up with topic sentence?

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References:

​https://www.livescience.com/57312-red-pandas.html

Pierce, H. Elevating Summarization with Elephants. https://hpierce1996.wixsite.com/readingdesign/reading-to-learn

​Tschetter, E. Busy Bee’s Summarizing. https://ellietschetter.wixsite.com/ellieslessons/reading-to-learn

Reading Genie Advancements, http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/advancements/