TAPCO ACADEMY MS ELA

September 9th-13th, 2013

Middle School ELA Yearly Standards

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Summarizing Text

RESPONSIBILITIES THIS WEEK

TAPCo academy is a week intensive crash course on the most important ELA skills. This week you should be taking notes and following very close attention as you will use these skills all year long. The skills you learn in the following week are the essence to what makes us all excellent readers and writers.

One period of lesson One period of practice and implementation

GOALS FOR WEEK

Monday: SWBAT summarize

Tuesday: SWBAT annotate and close read complex text

Wednesday: SWBAT develop a claim supported by evidence

Thursday: SWBAT draft and peer-edit an essay

Friday: SWBAT publish essay and complete baseline

TEXTS THIS WEEK

“How to Make Sure Facebook Doesn’t Ruin Your Life” by Ilisa Cohen

“Exposed to the Max” by Leah Paulos

YOU WILL NOW HAVE 15 MINUTES TO READ THESE

ARTICLES

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SUMMARY?

CONCISE COMPLETE OBJECTIVE

A summary is a condensed version of a text. A good

summary is concise, focusing on the relevant ideas, and leaving out much of the irrelevant details of the text.

A good summary is also complete, covering all of the important ideas found in the text.

A summary should be objective; the goal should be to cover the text fairly, without inserting your own opinion or perspective.

WRITING A CONCISE SUMMARY

A concise summary is one in which the author's main ideas have been captured in a few well-chosen words, and supporting details that explain the article.  A good strategy for capturing the key ideas is to go through the entire text and write the main point of each paragraph in the margin or on note paper.  Then, go over your notes and ask yourself how each paragraph fits into the author's overall main idea. After going over each paragraph, you will need to determine what the relevant information is vs. the irrelevant information.

WRITING A COMPLETE SUMMARY

Relevant Information Irrelevant Information

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH

Though the goal in summary writing is to be concise and eliminate irrelevant supporting details, it is also important not to leave out important sections of an author's text. If an author spends a substantial amount of time and space on a topic, a summary should include at least a brief explanation of why that section is there. A complete summary is one that does not skip over key points. 

WRITING AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY

It is important in summary writing to resist the temptation to writing personal examples, and opinions. Even seemingly innocent adjectives used to describe an author's work, such as “good work" or “interesting insight" are not correct in a summary. A summary should be an objective and open-minded paraphrase of an author's work.

In other words, do not tell the reader how you felt about the piece. Look from an “objective point of view” at the work.

TASKUsing the steps you have learned today, during

your next ELA period, write a summary of the texts using the guidelines learned today. This summary should be 3 paragraphs long. Each paragraph should be well developed and should follow the standards of summary writing learned today.

CONCISE COMPLETE OBJECTIVE

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Close Reading and Annotating Text

A close reading is an intensive analysis of a text in order to come to terms with what it says, how it says it, and what it means.

Important to become an excellent reader Ask questions Annotating Requires a text to be read multiple times

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 10TH

ANNOTATING AND CLOSE READING COMPLEX TEXT

READ WITH A PENCIL IN HAND!

Annotate the text. Underlining or highlighting key words and

phrases Anything that strikes you as surprising or

significant, or that raises questions Making notes in the margins. When we respond to a text in this way, we

not only force ourselves to pay close attention, but we also begin to think with the author about the evidence—the first step in moving from reader to writer

WHAT ARE ANNOTATING FOR? Inferences Making connections (text, self, world) Predictions Opinions Things you notice Vocabulary (figure it out in context) Things that seem important to you Conclusions you draw

MOST IMPORTANT PART OF CLOSE READING

Ask yourself questions! Challenge the author and their conclusions Why? How?

Let’s do a paragraph, together!

TASKUsing the steps you have learned today, during

your next ELA period, do a close reading of the texts using the guidelines learned today. Your articles should be SMOTHERED in annotations.

Re-read Annotate Ask questions, make predictions, draw

inferences etc.

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Developing Claims Supported by Evidence

DEVELOPING CLAIMS SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE

Developing a claim about a text is one of the most important things an engaged writer can do.

Done in college Make a conclusion about a text

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH

MAKING A CLAIM ABOUT AUTHOR’S POV

Use academic language Example: In the article “Timeless” by John

Smith, he examines the topic of aging and the effects it has on women. Smith argues that women are becoming more and more interested in their appearance because of society’s obsession on youth.

In this example, the writer states the name of the article, the author, a sentence summarizing it, and the conclusion that the author has drawn.

FINDING RELEVANT SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

Relevant Evidence Irrelevant Evidence

ANALYZING EVIDENCE Once you have developed a claim and

decided what evidence is relevant to support the claim, the next step is analyze the evidence.

This is the bulk of an essay

What is the author trying to say? Why is the author saying it?

TASK During the remainder of the period, begin to

develop a claim about what Cohen and Paulos are saying. What is the main idea of their articles? What are they trying to say?

When you finish developing your claim, look for evidence. Fill out the relevant and irrelevant evidence chart.

When you arrive to the second ELA period, begin to analyze the evidence. What is the author saying? Why is the author saying it? You must have at least 5 pieces of evidence that support your claim.

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Drafting and Peer-editing

DRAFTING AND PEER-EDITING

Important steps to being an excellent writer Essays must have drafts Multiple drafts

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 12TH

THE WRITING PROCESS

Prewriting- Time to think

First Draft- Time to write it down

Revising and Peer-editing- Time to improve my writing

Publishing- Time for my final product

PREWRITING Prewriting- time to think

What is my claim? What is my evidence? Do I have prior knowledge? Did I write an outline? What do I want to say? Did I brainstorm? How will I say it? Will I use a graphic organizer? Who is my audience? What is my purpose for writing?

FIRST DRAFT First draft- Time to write it down

What are my details? Which ideas do I want to develop? Is my vocabulary colorful? What is my evidence? Is it relevant and analyzed sufficiently? Am I supporting my claim? Remember: don’t waste time fixing and editing. This

is the time to let your ideas flow freely. You will have a chance to fix them later!

REVISING AND PEER-EDITING Revising and peer-editing- Time to Improve my

Writing

Is my introduction clear? Does my conclusion wrap up the essay? Did I reread my work? Did I support my claim and stay on track? Did I analyze my evidence? Are my details clear? Can I fix my grammar? Did I give it to at least three people to look at and revise? Have I checked all of my spelling, grammar,

capitalization, and punctuation?

PUBLISHING Publishing- time for my final product

Typed: Size 14 point font, time new roman, double spaced

Formatted correctly (MLA) Do I feel confident about my work? Is it the best work that I can possibly do? Did I write multiple drafts?

TASK During your next ELA period, you will write the outline and first

draft of your essay. This essay will be due during tomorrow after your baseline assessment.

Using the claim that you developed and evidence that you have collected this week about the main idea that the author is presenting, write a well-developed five paragraph essay. You do not need to write a finished essay, this is simply the first draft with revisions.

Be sure to Show evidence of learning from the entire week

understanding of the text from the summarizing and close reading Proof of revisions, drafting, and peer-editing

Use of clear and relevant detail Understanding of author’s point Neat and well-written Your best work

Tomorrow you will have a chance to write your final draft. This will be graded and will count as your baseline essay for the year.

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Publishing an Essay/ Baseline

PUBLISHING AN ESSAY/ WRITING THE FINAL DRAFT

Publishing an essay gives you a chance to showcase your work.

The final draft of an essay is your writing after sufficient drafting, revisions, and editing.

Your final draft should NEVER be the first thing that comes to mind. The point is that is has a lot of work and thought to it.

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 13TH

BASELINE TASK Today you will have three periods of ELA. This period and two other

periods. During these periods you are to write the final draft of the task from yesterday.

Task:

Using the claim that you developed and evidence that you have collected this week about the main idea that the author is presenting, write a well-developed five paragraph essay. Using the first draft with all of the edits from yesterday, write the final draft of your essay.

Be sure to Show evidence of learning from the entire week

understanding of the text from the summarizing and close reading Proof of revisions, drafting, and peer-editing

Use of clear and relevant detail Understanding of author’s point Neat and well-written Your best work

You may begin.Good luck!