Oh how things can go wrong in an instant. The first rotation (of 3) went sideways very quickly. I spent too much time finishing a reading comprehension sheet from the day before, and reviewing whole group (with kids talking in groups to confirm their responses- since all had read the piece, and most were 3/4 done or further). The initial time had the kiddos sitting too long, and I ended up doing too much talking thereafter as I was modeling how to summarize.
Do they know how to summarize? Well they have been asked to summarize before, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they all know how to summarize. My goal was to be intentional in my modeling, engage then engage them through helping me put the parts of my summary together, and release them into independent practice on a chapter summary. Oy vey!
After talking too long the kids seemed lethargic. Most wrote a few sentences, but many were leading with supporting details and tossing in the kitchen sink. While we had talked (student-generated) about a summary being "only the main ideas, and details to support them," there were plenty of summaries that had gone askew.
How do I fix it? Well by providing more scaffolding this first time around. Some will need an in-between step from notes to summary. They will need an organizational tool/framework that will then allow them to move more seamlessly into writing. In this case, I will have a few photocopied for those that struggle transferring board-paper. Otherwise I will have the structure in Word on the projector (or in a flipchart), and they can copy that onto notebook paper (save some copies) and staple that to go with their summary. Additionally I am going to have them peer review their summaries- does it include a topic sentence? does it have supporting details? are the main ideas from the chapter included? is the writing clear to the reader? We'll see if this helps us along.
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