Title: Carving Out the Main Idea Subject: English Language Arts (Reading Skills) Grade Level: 6th

Time Allotted: 40 minutes

Materials Required: SmartBoard/overhead projector, copies of reading passages, markers/pens, photo. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Michigan Curriculum framework: Benchmark and/or GLCE/HSCE/EGLCE (write out) R.CM.06.02 Retell through concise summarization grade-level narrative and informational text. Objective(s): A portion of a GLCE or HSCE stated in terms of Blooms taxonomy (level/verb) The student will {Blooms taxonomy verb} {level of Blooms taxonomy learning) The student will use concise summarization of grade-level informational text by determining a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details with 75% accuracy. Purpose: To gain knowledge on how to find the central or main idea of informational texts. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Instructional Procedure: What information do students need to accomplish the objective? 1. Anticipatory Set: a. Say, Did you know that we determine the main idea every day, in everything we do, see, or hear not just in reading or on a test? Its true. When we look at people, we sum them up, or when we watch a TV show or listen to music, we dont remember every detail. We remember the most important parts, the main idea. Lets practice finding the main idea in something we can see. b. Show a photo and make sure every student gets a good look at it. Then take the picture away. c. Ask students questions about the details they saw in the picture. Where was this picture taken? Are there people in the pictures? What were they doing? Etc. Allow students to answer four to six questions. d. Say, See, you picked up a lot of the details in the picture. Now, lets put them together to get the main idea of the picture. e. Re-show the picture to the class while accepting students responses of what the main idea should be. 2. State Purpose and Objective of Lesson: a. Say, Now that we have gotten an idea of how to find a main idea in a picture, were going to learn a strategy to find the main idea of some non-fiction texts. This is important because when we read something, we need to understand what it means, so that we can make connections to other things when talking to people or writing essays. 3. Plan for Instruction: Paragraph Shrinking Strategy a. Modeling i. Showing an example as you explain

1. Review/explain the concept of main idea in a reading passage. Say, Identifying the main idea means to express, in a few words, what the entire reading is about. It is the big idea of a text. 2. Model carving out the main idea steps (modeling these steps at least 3 times): a. Place a (/) line between each sentence. (Breaking paragraphs down into smaller parts.) b. Put an (X) over each junk word (words that are not relevant to the main idea). Here are examples of junk words: in, the, a, his, her, on, and, to, I, me, of, it. c. Circle each important leftover word: i. Proper names (words beginning in capital letters) ii. Dates iii. Numbers iv. Words with more than four letters v. Special punctuation: words in bold or italics (even if less than five letters), exclamation points, quotations, and headings 3. Guide students to develop a main idea statement from the leftover words. b. Guided Practice: i. Students will work with a partner to complete another carving exercise to find the main idea. 1. Students will have a copy of the carving strategy steps. c. Independent Practice: i. Students will be able to complete a carving exercise on their own and develop the main idea of a passage. 4. Differentiation Considerations: a. Accommodations for access to general education curriculum i. Providing the reading handout for students to follow along with. Making the text easily readable through double spacing especially for the task that will be asked of the students. Modeling the activity on the SmartBoard or a projector. b. Modifications for students whose IEP indicates that they are meeting the EGLCEs i. Instead of using a usual informational text, I would use a how-to book with stepby-step approaches and help students to come up with main idea through looking at the steps. c. Alternate plans for students who finish quickly i. Ask the students to come up with the main idea in the books that they are currently reading for free reading without marking up the books. 5. Assessment: Checking for understanding by asking the students to actively participate in the modeling of the carving strategy by asking students which words should stay and which should go. Allowing students to work through (out loud) what they believe the main idea is. 6. Closure: a. Let the students summarize what they have learned. a. Ask students to name the steps of the carving exercise in order.