Summarizing Nonfiction Lesson 2

Focus of Lesson: Summarizing nonfiction text

Grade Level/Subject: 3rd Grade/ELA
Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.2 Determine the
main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main
idea.
Student Learning Objective:

I can summarize a nonfiction text.

Materials Needed

Summarizing worksheet (see attachments)

Writing utensils

Chart paper

Scholastic News weekly reader or other nonfiction selection

Lesson Outline:

In a small group the teacher will introduce the reporters strategyWho, Did What, When, Where, Why (sometimes How) to help students
understand one method for summarizing nonfiction text. The teacher will say,
Remember that nonfiction summaries focus on important details that tell about
the main idea of the text. To summarize a nonfiction text make sure to look
closely at the title, subtitles, and text features presented in the text because this
information may help you figure out Who, Did What, When, Where, and Why
(sometimes How)

The teacher will say, Today we will learn a new method on how to summarize
nonfiction text. We will use the reporters method. This method will help us come
up with a written summary statement. During the reading we will ask:
o Who/What is the passage mostly about? (topic)
o What is important about the topic or subject?
o When does this take place?
o Where does this take place?
o Why is the topic or subject important?
o How does this occur?

The teacher will hand out copies of worksheets that contain these sentence stems.
Next, the teacher will pass out copies of the scholastic news weekly reader or other
nonfiction selection and writing utensils.

The article will be read once by the teacher and then the students will take turns
reading aloud the article aloud titled Drying up a second time. After the article has
been read twice the students will independently fill out questions 1-6 on the attached
summarizing nonfiction worksheet. The teacher will observe the students as they
work.

Together the teacher and students will review the answers for questions 1-6 (see
attached answer key). The student will then be challenged to write a 3-5 sentence
summary that contains and uses the information from numbers 1-6.

The students will be given time to write his or her summary. Students will share
summaries aloud one at a time.

Extensions/Differentiation

Group A- Students in the approaching grade-level group will work together to

answer questions 1-6. They will not answer these questions independently. The
teacher will help guide these students, using a questioning approach, to
successfully answer the questions.

Group O- To help the students decide which information is important versus

interesting facts, the teacher will record sentences from the text on sentence strips.
The students will work together to decide if the information on the sentence strip
is important and answers the reporters strategy- Who, Did What, When, Where,
Why (sometimes How). Sentences that are important will go in one pile, and
sentences that are interesting but do not answer- Who, Did What, When, Where,
Why (sometimes How) will go into another pule.

Group B- Students working beyond grade-level can be challenged to develop a

written summary without answering questions 1-6. This will challenge higherlevel thinkers to sort out important information from interesting facts in order to
create a 3-5 sentence written summary.

Assessment- Formative- To assess students learning during the small-group

lesson the teacher will observe the students ability to write a summary sentence
during the lesson.

Teacher Notes/ Reflection-

During this lesson I noticed again that students had a tough time understanding
the difference between interesting and important information. To address this issue I
would recommend having the students answer a question before highlighting the
important information. Students must justify which of the six reporters questions is
answered before using a highlighter. This seemed to help slow down the students and
forced them to look critically at the information presented in the text. I would
recommend using this strategy in the future.