ELA 09.09.25 Summary and Claims

Poslední aktualizace about 1 month ago

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Summary

Claims, Summaries, and Central Ideas

Writers and readers often use different words for the same basic skill. You may hear the words Claim, Central Idea, Main Idea, or Summary Sentence. They sound different, but they all ask you to do the same thing:

Take a whole text, paragraph, or idea, and boil it down into one strong sentence that sums it up.

In CER writing, we call it a Claim.
In reading, we call it a Central Idea or Main Idea.
In summarizing, it’s often the first (or last) sentence that explains what the whole text is about.

No matter what we call it, it always has the same job:
To capture the big idea in one clear sentence.

If you can do this, you’re already building the most important part of both reading and writing.

(Time Permitting)

ELA 09.09.25 Summary and Claims

Poslední aktualizace about 1 month ago

13 Dotazy

DO NOW

DO NOW

Directions: Read the passage below. Then answer questions about errors in the passage.

My name is Jacqueline. I am 1) a clerk at the Dave’s Grocery Store. Sometimes I work at a cash register. When 2) I no working there I work 3) in the service counter. The grocery store has a 4) bank a flower shop, and a pharmacy. 5) There are an ATM 6) between the entrance. The store is on Main Street. 7) All most everybody in town shops 8) to Dave’s.

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Summary

Claims, Summaries, and Central Ideas

Take a whole text, paragraph, or idea, and boil it down into one strong sentence that sums it up.

In CER writing, we call it a Claim.
In reading, we call it a Central Idea or Main Idea.
In summarizing, it’s often the first (or last) sentence that explains what the whole text is about.

No matter what we call it, it always has the same job:
To capture the big idea in one clear sentence.

If you can do this, you’re already building the most important part of both reading and writing.

Highlight the sentence that shows the main idea of the paragraph.

Paragraph 13

During the next few weeks Miss Ryan overcame my fears of tall, energetic teachers as she bent over my desk to help me with a word in the pre-primer. Step by step, she loosened me and my classmates from the safe anchorage of the desks for recitations at the blackboard and consultations at her desk. … The main reason I was graduated with honors from the first grade was that I had fallen in love with Miss Ryan. Her radiant, no-nonsense character made us either afraid not to love her or love her so we would not be afraid, I am not sure which.

Claim Question
How would you write a summary of Paragraph 13 (above)?
Answer this question with only a claim.

Finding the Big Idea When It’s Not Obvious

Sometimes finding the main idea or summary sentence in a paragraph is easy — the author puts it right at the beginning or the end. But other times, the author doesn’t tell you directly.

When that happens, you have to be a detective. Look for commonalities — details that repeat, connect, or all point to the same big idea.

Ask yourself:

What do the sentences in this paragraph have in common?
Are they describing the same place, person, or event?
Do they all show the same feeling, problem, or theme?

Once you figure out the common thread, you can write your own one-sentence summary that captures the whole idea.

Claim Question
What do these three sentence from of Paragraph 7 have in common?
Paragraph 7 [Excerpts]
"What Miss Hopley said to us we did not know but we saw in her eyes a warm welcome and when she took off her glasses and straightened up she smiled wholeheartedly, like Mrs. Dodson." (Galarza)
"We were, of course, saying nothing, only catching the friendliness of her voice and the sparkle in her eyes while she said words we did not understand"(Galarza)
"I decided I liked her."(Galarza)
Answer this question with only a claim.

CER Response Rubric

Claim (3pts)

The Claim answers the question.(1pt)
The Claim uses important words from the question (including the subject). (1pt)
The Claim is a complete sentence (with a capital letter at the beginning and a period at the end). (1pt)

Evidence (3pts)

There is a Lead-in that introduces the quote (usually by saying, The author writes,) (1pt)
The Evidence is a word-for-word quote from the text (with "quotation marks" around it) (1pt)
There is an Author's Citation which contains the last name of the author (in (Parenthesis)) (1pt)

Reasoning (3pts)

Reasoning explains how or why the evidence supports the claim.

Paragraph 1

"The two of us walked south on Fifth Street one morning to the corner of Q Street and turned right. Half of the block was occupied by the Lincoln School. It was a three-story wooden building, with two wings that gave it the shape of a double-T connected by a central hall. It was a new building, painted yellow, with a shingled roof that was not like the red tile of the school in Mazatlán. I noticed other differences, none of them very reassuring." (Galarza)

CER Response Question
How would you summarize Paragraph 1 from the text "Barrio Boy" (left)?
In the same answer box:
Write a claim to answer each question
Write evidence that supports the claim
Write reasoning the explains why your evidence supports your claim
Use the Rubrics at the top of the page when crafting your response.

(Time Permitting)

Paragraph 17

At Lincoln, making us into Americans did not mean scrubbing away what made us originally foreign. The teachers called us as our parents did, or as close as they could pronounce our names in Spanish or Japanese. No one was ever scolded or punished for speaking in his native tongue on the playground. Matti told the class about his mother’s down quilt, which she had made in Italy with the fine feathers of a thousand geese. Encarnación acted out how boys learned to fish in the Philippines. I astounded the third grade with the story of my travels on a stagecoach, which nobody else in the class had seen except in the museum at Sutter’s Fort. After a visit to the Crocker Art Gallery and its collection of heroic paintings of the golden age of California, someone showed a silk scroll with a Chinese painting. Miss Hopley herself had a way of expressing wonder over these matters before a class, her eyes wide open until they popped slightly. It was easy for me to feel that becoming a proud American, as she said we should, did not mean feeling ashamed of being a Mexican. (Galarza)

CER Response Question
How would you Summarize Paragraph 17 from the text "Barrio Boy" (left).
In the same answer box:
Write a claim to answer each question
Write evidence that supports the claim
Write reasoning the explains why your evidence supports your claim
Use the Rubrics at the top of the page when crafting your response.

ELA 09.09.25 Summary and Claims

(Time Permitting)

ELA 09.09.25 Summary and Claims

Highlight the sentence that shows the main idea of the paragraph.

Claim Question
How would you write a summary of Paragraph 13 (above)?
Answer this question with only a claim.

Finding the Big Idea When It’s Not Obvious

(Time Permitting)

I am 1) a clerk at the Dave’s Grocery Store.

When 2) I no working there

I work 3) in the service counter.

The grocery store has a 4) bank a flower shop, and a pharmacy.

5) There are an ATM

There is an ATM 6) between the entrance.

7) All most everybody in town

everybody in town shops 8) to Dave’s.

Highlight the sentence that shows the main idea of the paragraph.

Claim Question
How would you write a summary of Paragraph 13 (above)?
Answer this question with only a claim.

Finding the Big Idea When It’s Not Obvious

I am 1) a clerk at the Dave’s Grocery Store.

When 2) I no working there

I work 3) in the service counter.

The grocery store has a 4) bank a flower shop, and a pharmacy.

5) There are an ATM

There is an ATM 6) between the entrance.

7) All most everybody in town

everybody in town shops 8) to Dave’s.

ELA 09.09.25 Summary and Claims

(Time Permitting)

ELA 09.09.25 Summary and Claims

Highlight the sentence that shows the main idea of the paragraph.

Claim QuestionHow would you write a summary of Paragraph 13 (above)?Answer this question with only a claim.

Finding the Big Idea When It’s Not Obvious

(Time Permitting)

I am 1) a clerk at the Dave’s Grocery Store.

When 2) I no working there

I work 3) in the service counter.

The grocery store has a 4) bank a flower shop, and a pharmacy.

5) There are an ATM

There is an ATM 6) between the entrance.

7) All most everybody in town

everybody in town shops 8) to Dave’s.

Highlight the sentence that shows the main idea of the paragraph.

Claim QuestionHow would you write a summary of Paragraph 13 (above)?Answer this question with only a claim.

Finding the Big Idea When It’s Not Obvious

I am 1) a clerk at the Dave’s Grocery Store.

When 2) I no working there

I work 3) in the service counter.

The grocery store has a 4) bank a flower shop, and a pharmacy.

5) There are an ATM

There is an ATM 6) between the entrance.

7) All most everybody in town

everybody in town shops 8) to Dave’s.

Claim Question
How would you write a summary of Paragraph 13 (above)?
Answer this question with only a claim.

Claim Question
How would you write a summary of Paragraph 13 (above)?
Answer this question with only a claim.