Chapter 14 page 310
paragraph is about the different kinds of places where
people live in Illinois. I’m wondering if I can just list
the different places where people live in Illinois and
make that my summary.
The second sentence says that many people live
in Chicago. Well, that’s a place, isn’t it? Then it says
that 6 million people live in the suburbs. That’s another
place. We have cities and suburbs so far. So far, we
could say that people live in many kinds of places,
including Chicago and its suburbs. Then the paragraph
says that 9 million people live in the Chicago area. Is
this a new idea? We already know that 3 million people
live in Chicago, and 6 million people live in its
suburbs, so that’s not a new idea. I’m going to leave
that out of the summary, because it’s not a new idea.
Next, we read that “Smaller cities are found in
the southern and western parts of the states.” And then
the last sentence says, “And in these areas, there are
rural areas with many farms and smaller towns.” OK—
that’s two more places, farms and small towns. So we
see that this whole paragraph really is about the
different places where people live in Illinois.
Now, what can I do with all this information?
Every single sentence was about the different places
people live in Illinois. Now I know that the first
sentence really tells the main idea of the paragraph, so I
will start my summary by repeating the first sentence:
The people of Illinois live in many different kinds of
places. Shall I stop there? Well, I could stop there, but
if I added a few more words, I could tell a lot more
about the different kinds of places where people live in
Illinois. I could just add those words where they live.
So I can make this my summary: The people of Illinois
live in many different kinds of places—Chicago, its
suburbs, smaller cities, small towns, and farms.
If the rest of the paragraph is all about places
where people live in Illinois, the first sentence
could become the summary.She goes through the next sentences and show
that these both fit the first sentence.She explains why she thinks that the sentence
about 9 million people in the Chicago area is
not important—it does not state a new idea.As she reads the rest of the paragraph, she
continues the list of different places where
people live.She confirms that the whole paragraph is about
where people live in Illinois.
She explains why she has decided to use the
first sentence of the paragraph to start her
summary.
Then she explicitly addresses a question that
might be confusing to students: should they stop
the summary with the first sentence, or should
they add more information?Teacher #2 models the process of generating a summary, not just the product (i.e., the final summary). She
explains why she decides to include some ideas in her summary and why she excludes other ideas. This
helps students who do not already know how to generate a summary learn how to do it.
When teachers model strategies, it is good to show that good thinkers sometimes stumble and
flounder as they try to employ strategies. Expert thinkers often do flounder and run in to dead ends and
have to start over. Strategies sometimes fail (A. Collins et al., 1989), and it is important for students to see
that good self-regulated learners do not give up when strategies fail but instead try new strategies. As
learning scientist Allan Collins and his colleagues explain in a classic paper, “Even experts stumble,
flounder, and abandon their search for a solution until another time. Witnessing these struggles helps
students realize that thrashing is neither unique to them nor a sign of incompetence.”