Task name:

Comprehending a text

Lesson aim:

By the end of the lesson the students will be able demonstrate comprehension of a text by filling a worksheet with different exercises.

Level:

2nd medio

Skill:

Reading

Task Description:

The students are given a half-one-page-size text about a US president’s public speech and they have to complete a series of activities in order to demonstrate comprehension of the text. They have to read the text twice using different reading strategies such as skimming and scanning.

Firstly, students have to skim through the text in order to get the main idea or aspect of the text and answer to the question “What is the main point of the text?” in a worksheet provided.

Secondly, the students have to read the text again and scan through it in order to spot important details and facts from the text. Students have to make a list of these details in the worksheet.

After that, students are presented a third item, a matching exercise in which they have to match facts from the text with different possible explanations.

Students are finally required to provide a 4-to-5-sentence summary of the text including all the main aspects. They are not supposed to write more than the required number of sentences, otherwise they are not being precise enough to demonstrate comprehension.

Student’s Name: ________________________________________ Date:__/__/__ Score:_____ Mark:______

CATEGORY 4 3 2 1

Identifies important information

Student identifies the main point of the article without having the article in front of him/her.

The student identifies the main point, but uses the article for reference.

The student identifies the main point, using the article for reference, but does not fully develop it.

The student is unable to identify important information accurately.

Identifies details Student recalls several details from the text without referring directly to the article.

Student recalls several details for each main point, but needs to refer to the article, occasionally.

Student is able to locate most of the details when looking at the article.

Student cannot locate details with accuracy even looking at the article.

Identifies facts Student accurately locates the 5 facts in the article match them with their respective explanation.

Student locates 4 facts in the article and matches them with their respective explanation.

Student accurately locates 3 or 2 facts in the article.

Student has difficulty locating facts in an article and provides only one or none matching.

Summarizing Student uses only 4-5 sentences to describe clearly what the article is about.

Student uses more than 5 sentences to accurately describe what the article is about.

Student summarizes most of the article accurately, but has some slight misunderstanding.

Student has great difficulty summarizing the article.