Leah Jones Drake University Grade Level: 6-8th Text: Monster of the Sea, Scholastic Scope, March 12,

2012 Other materials needed: copies of the article for each student, paper, composition notebooks and pencils Lesson Focus: Comprehension Determining Importance/Main Idea Standards: IA.1.Employ the full range of research-based comprehension strategies, including making connections, determining importance, questioning, visualizing, making inferences, summarizing, and monitoring for comprehension. Objectives: Teacher - Given any grade level text, students will always be able to distinguish between the topic and main idea of the text. Students - I can distinguish between the topic and main idea of a text. Teacher - Given any grade level text, students will always be able to evaluate the text to determine the main idea, or message of the text. Students - I can evaluate a text to determine the main idea or message. Teacher - Given examples, modeling and guided practice, students will be able to respectfully listen to and share their thinking with peers. Students - I can respectfully listen and share my thinking with a partner.

Instructional Technique: Main idea is often confused with topic. Main idea is difficult to judge for three reasons: 1) most main ideas are implied, 2) sometimes the author may have more than one main idea, and 3) main idea may alter as the reader continues encountering new information in the text. To determine the main idea, the reader needs to understand that authors write because they have important ideas to convey. (authors purpose) By the end of the lesson, students will be able to determine the main idea of this article and support their conclusions with evidence from the text.

Lesson Introduction: Today we are going to be reading an article entitled Monster of the Sea. This is a non-fiction text about a sea monster. Our focus today is going to be on determining the main idea of a text. The main idea is not the same as the topic. The topic is the sea monster. The main idea is what the author wants us to remember from the article. It is the main message the author tries to tell us. Main idea means what the author wants us to remember or learn. Turn to your partner and share what main idea is. (TTYP) Remember our social goal for today is to listen and share with a partner. Instructor Models and Demonstrates: (I do) Good readers think about what the author wants us to remember or learn as the main idea. To do this, I need to think about what the author is trying to tell me. Listen while I read the first paragraph from Monster of the Sea. I will then share what I think the author wants me to remember or the main ideas. Begin reading aloud with text in view of students. Stop after reading page 11. As I read this, I was thinking this story takes place at night in the darkness. Also, I noticed that the ship was racing, then came to a complete stop. The fact that the sailors saw a tentacle curling around the ship may also be important. As I continue reading some of these facts may stay important as clues to the overall main idea, and some may turn out not to be so important. Readers need to keep reading and then make changes to what is important as they encounter new information. Some of these may really be great clues. There is only one way to find out keep reading! Guided Practice: (We do it together) Now I want you to follow along as I read the next section of the text. I will read the next paragraph and you will write down any clues you think are important to the main idea. Then you will turn and talk to a neighbor about the clues we think are important to learn or remember as the main idea. We need to tell why we think these clues are important to the main idea. Remember, we each may pick up on different clues. We may eliminate some of the clues I thought were important, too. Thats ok. Good readers make changes in their thinking when they get new information. Point to the person who will be your partner. Have pairs share out ideas and discuss as a class. Guide discussion with questions to keep it focused on the bigger, main idea. Practice with other articles and have students practice independently as they become more comfortable with the technique. Assessment: Informal assessment by observation of student oral responses at this time.