Breaking Down Summarizing Skills

In my February 22 blog post, Working on Explaining in Social Studies, I demonstrated how I made a "break-out" skill chart to help students get a better understanding of how to explain ideas in Social Studies. This skills chart (rubric) had a lot of success in many ways: as a self-assessment tool, as a formative feedback tool, and a tool to prepare for the essay question in the summative assessment.

We are now in our Nonfiction Reading unit in English Language Arts. Part of what we ask students to do is to summarize their reading in their Reading Notebooks. This assignment holds students accountable for doing the reading, gives us feedback on how well they are understanding their reading, and practices a higher level "determining importance" thinking skill.

Based on the last two years of doing this assignment, I have determined that the first two goals are being met, but the third was hit or miss, mostly because my teaching of that skill was hit or miss. I decided to make some new break-out skill charts for summarizing to see if they could hit more than miss.

Image from Amazon.com website

Using the TCRWP 2011-12 Eighth Grade Performance Assessment rubric as a model, I broke summarizing into three skill areas: determining main idea, using topic-specific vocabulary words, and selecting the strongest supporting details. I used the nonfiction text We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March by Cynthia Levinson (Peachtree Publishers, 2012) as a model.

After reading a section of the model text, I talked through my process for the targeted summarizing skill. I showed the skill chart, and talked through the differences between the levels. I read aloud the next section of the text and had students turn and talk, practicing the skill using the chart to help them. Finally, I gave them a written copy of the next section of the text and asked them to write a one-sentence (or three-sentences in the case of the details lesson) summary that showed how well they could do the skill independently. I used those written practices to conference individually with those who needed reteaching and clarification.

Here are the three charts I used:

(Note: The example is still being worked on for the details chart-- that lesson comes on Monday!)

Students practiced one-sentence main ideas across three days last week, one of those days using good topic-specific words. I noticed that many students are too general, "This section is talking about how racism affects the black people of Birmingham", or focus in on only part of the reading. Having the written practices really helps me identify who to work with to fix up misunderstandings. Having the skills chart helps me be specific in what needs to be fixed up, and gives me an example with which to work. So far, this approach is allowing me to guide those students in a way that will get them to "hit" the target when they would otherwise probably "miss" it.