We are wrapping up the first part of our first unit. We've been working on Geography, as it will help us moving forward in learning about American history and settlement. Later this week, and next, we'll start some work in the basal reader on Earthquakes and volcanoes (reading comprehension- sequence of events, main ideas). With each day I'm gaining a greater sense of how the puzzle fits together.
Tomorrow we will be creating some chapter summaries. Summaries are difficult to explain, let alone teach. But I am going to give it a whirl with some help from ReadWriteThink. We've done so much reading with tons of vocabulary that I worry it can all start to look like googly-glop (official terminology). What is most important? Well I am going to model creating a summary using a first person account of their western journey, which we read today. I'll then start to guide them into the chapter, talking about the biggest idea and moving from there (like a fishbone essentially- a core with spines coming off).
All of this will be a good review for an assessment we'll have on Thursday (content, not summary). From the summaries I'll be able to tell where folks are at with their writing, and where some are struggling as far as main idea identification.
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