Determine Importance

What’s the big idea?

Determining Importance Good readers look for things that help them identify big ideas and why they are important.

Before reading…  Look at text features for clues:  Titles and headings  Bold print  Pictures and captions  Graphs and charts  Chapter objectives and questions

Title  What do you think this piece is about?  Do you think it’s fiction or non-fiction?

Stopping a Toppling Tower by Mary Kay Carson

Headings  What do the headings tell you about the piece?

 What do you think the piece is about now?

Headings in the text:

The Problem The Solution

Bold Print  What words are bolded in this piece?

 Why do you think they are bolded?

Pictures and Captions  What pictures are added to this piece?

 What do they add to the writing?

 How do they help us understand what is written?

Graphs and Charts  Are there any graphs or charts in this piece?

 What are they about?

 Why is the information presented in chart form?

Chapter Objectives and Questions  Are there any questions asked of the reader in this piece? What are they?

 What do the questions add to the piece?

While Reading…  In your head you may hear yourself saying…  The big idea is…  Most important information is…  So far I’ve learned…  The author is saying…  This idea is similar to…

Stopping a Toppling Tower Create the following chart: Big Idea Summaries Details

Chart 

Big Idea

: The one big idea of the selected piece. 

Summaries

: Use the detail notes to create a one-sentence summary to go in the middle column. Create several one-sentence summaries of different sections or paragraphs of a text.



Details

: Key words, phrases and examples from the piece.

Stopping a Toppling Tower Big Idea Summaries Details

Writing a Summary  Now that you have created a chart with all the important details, and summaries about each section, write a one paragraph summary of the piece. It should tell only the main facts, not specific details.

 Keep in mind… your summary should be brief but should give someone who has never read the piece a good idea of what it was about.