Reading to Learn

Whale, Lets Summarize!

By Caroline Shea

Rationale: Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. Students who are at this level are ready to learn strategies better understand a text. This lesson introduces a strategy called about-point to help students learn to form a topic sentence about a paragraph by asking two questions. The first question asks “What is the text about?” and the second question asks “What is the main point the writer is making about the topic?” By finding the most important points that the author is making, students are learning to summarize a piece of text.

Materials:

Individual copies of “Blue Whale” article for each student
Pencil and paper for each student
Summarization checklist
Comprehension quiz
Dry erase board and marker

Procedures:

Say: Have you ever read a book or watched a movie that you loved so much and wanted to tell your friends about it? When you explained the book or movie to them, did you tell them every single detail, or did you only mention the most important parts? If you have ever shortened a story like this by telling a friend the most important parts of a book or movie, you have practiced summarization! Summarization is a strategy that expert readers use to comprehend a book or article by only telling the most important parts through a summary. Summaries are important because you can’t remember everything, so you reduce what you read to remember the most important points that the author made about a topic.
Say: One way we can summarize is by using a strategy called about-point. When we use about-point, you will ask yourself two different questions about your reading. You will answer an easy question, “What is the text about?” and a tough question, “What is the main point the writer is making about that topic?” [Write these two questions on the white board for students to have as reference.] When you answer the tough question, it will help you to identify an “umbrella” term that covers the important parts that the author has written. The answer to both of these questions will help you make a topic sentence.
Say: Later in this lesson, I will model how to practice the about-point strategy with a paragraph in an article called “Blue Whale.” You will read this article today while you practice summarization. Has anyone ever seen a Blue Whale in real life? According to the article, blue whales can weigh up to 400,000 pounds! They are very heavy animals, and they have a very interesting way of life in the sea! In a few minutes, we will read the article to learn more about the Blue Whale.
Say: You need to know what the word buoyancy means to understand the paragraph that we will read together. Let’s look at buoyancy. Buoyancy is the ability to float. This means an object or animal’s average density is less than the average density of the liquid it is floating in. Buoyancy is not the ability to swim. You wouldn’t say that a rock is buoyant because the average density of a rock is more than the average density of water. However, you could say that a rubber duck is buoyant because when you put your rubber duck in the bathtub, it floats! Which one of these uses buoyancy correctly? “When I throw my beach ball in the pool, it’s buoyancy helps it float.” or “I can swim because of buoyancy.” Right, the first sentence is correct because buoyancy is the ability to float. The second sentence in incorrect because you can swim because you learned how, not because of buoyancy. Try finishing this sentence: I know my toy boat is buoyant because … [Possible answers: writing on the board with a red marker or a blue marker, reading the class a book in the morning or in the afternoon, etc.]
Say: Now that we understand the word buoyancy, we will look at a paragraph from the article together: “Blue whales are able to breathe air, but they are very comfortable in the ocean waters where buoyancy helps to support their incredible bulk.” This paragraph is about blue whales, but what important points does the author make? Blue whales come up from the water briefly so they can breathe air. Blue whales spend most of their time underwater. I can form a topic sentence by joining these two points: Blue whales briefly come up for air since they spend most of their life underwater.
Say: It’s your turn to try about-point! Read these sentences: “Only a few thousand blue whales are believed to swim the world's oceans. They were hunted for many years for their blubber and oil, and they were almost hunted to extinction.”
Say: What is this paragraph about? Correct, blue whales. What are the main points that the author makes about blue whales? Yes! There are only a few thousand blue whales in the world. What is another point that the author makes? Right, they were hunted for many years and were almost extinct. To make a topic sentence, you will put these points together! Let’s try: Blue whales…? Blue whales were hunted for many years, but a few thousand still exist today.
Say: Now, I want you to finish reading the article and write a topic sentence for each paragraph using about-point. This will allow you to have a strong summary of the whole article once you are finished. Your summary will help you remember the most important facts about blue whales. Remember to answer both questions in about-point to help you form a topic sentence. You can look at the board for the questions if you need help. Don’t forget to only pick out the most important points that the author is making in each paragraph, and to summarize in your own words. When you are finished, staple your topic sentence page to the article and turn it in to me.
I will review each student’s topic sentence page to determine if they successfully summarized the paragraphs of the article. I will use the assessment checklist to record student grades. The students will also take a brief comprehension quiz.