Twenty Years of Summarizing

 When I sat down to write my first book, Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Retelling: Skills for Better Reading, Writing, and Test Taking, my main goal was to settle a professional dispute that I had with a colleague: Was summarizing a lower level skill? Was it worthy of teaching, in and of itself? Not only did I settle the dispute, but I also entered a new to me world of educational research and discussion.

    Twenty years and 8 classrooms later, arguments about summarizing persist. Now, though, the entire educational landscape has shifted. The Common Core Standards de-emphasized comprehension skills like summarizing, putting a greater importance on textual analysis. Misguided application of Science of Reading has gutted comprehension instruction completely for some students, leading second graders to mark up words that they know how to read to identify syllable types while reading only tortured text written with a narrow vocabulary of decodable words. And in the background, AI is quietly summarizing every text that has ever been written, right down to the product review for this very product. It’s enough to make one wonder if a revised version of this product is even worth creating.

My own educational landscape has shifted, too. When I first opened up journal articles to find out about summarizing, I was teaching in a district that afforded me a great amount of professional leeway. Over the years, that leeway narrowed until my last year of ELA teaching was constrained by keeping pace and teaching only what was in the purchased textbook curriculum.

But.

Last year, I sat down to work with students in my new position, gifted and enrichment. And I found that my students, students with high reading scores and well-developed vocabularies and amazing background knoweldge, these students who had everything going for them, could not paraphrase a text to answer a question. And these students also could not tell me what a summary is, much less how to write one.

“I wonder how I can help them?” I mused, and did some cursory Internet searching (boy, has that changed! Where I used to find a hundred helpful blog posts, now I find only links to products!). Several pages in, I stumbled upon something that I had written. 

Because of course I know how to teach summarizing. Of course I know that I have to teach students how to find main ideas, how to differentiate what the author finds important from what they as the reader find important, how to restructure ideas to paraphrase, how to eliminate trivial details from a summary. Of course I know how to do this!

It was with new energy that I started the complete overhaul of this product. I could envision what I wanted: A pretest. Multiple text sets with best practice summarizing activities. Multiple levels and interesting topics that I could use with all of my classes in grades 3-6. I had been discouraged from writing for a long time—discouraged by value-added test scores, discouraged by a prescriptive curriculum, discouraged by all that is going on in education beyond my classroom. But when it comes to summarizing, I felt as if I was once more on solid ground.

After all—I wrote the book.

Once Upon a Chestnut: A Main Idea Teaching Text for Students

   

 It's important to help readers see that multi-paragraph texts are nested combinations of main ideas. Paragraphs have main ideas which build up to section main ideas which build up to article main ideas. 

     I wrote the text below as an example of this. After the introduction, each section has a clear, easy-to-find main idea. Not only was this a good text to use to teach science concepts, but it was able to serve double duty as an ELA text too.

     To find a formatted version of this text with ready-to-use activities, click here: Main Ideas and Details in Expository Text.

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Once Upon a Chestnut

    It was called the perfect tree. It grew tall and fast. Its nuts could feed people, wildlife, and livestock. Its wood could be used for fences and railings. Its large leaves shaded forests up and down the East Coast.
But now, it is almost impossible to see. This tree was the American chestnut tree. One hundred twenty years ago, the American chestnut tree was common in North America. But virtually none can be seen today. What happened?

Exciting Times, Exchanging Trees 

    The 1800s were an exciting century for gardeners. Schooners and steamships made oceanic travel faster and easier, and shipping goods became less expensive. People enjoyed learning about new kinds of plants. They sent different specimens from place to place. The beautiful magnolia tree, a native of Central and North America, was grown in European gardens. Gardeners brought many beautiful plants from China and Japan to America. 

A Deadly Blight 

    One of these exotic plants was the Japanese chestnut. The Japanese chestnut was brought to the United States as a crop tree. People hoped to be able to sell the harvest from the Japanese chestnut tree. They also liked the looks of the Japanese chestnut. They described it as more ornamental than the tall, fast-growing American chestnut. 

    What people didn’t realize is that these trees were bringing an unexpected problem. A fungus that caused a blight, or tree disease, had come along with the trees. This fungus didn’t cause much harm to the Chinese and Japanese trees. But the American chestnut trees had no resistance. Once they were infected, these trees died. 

A Problem That Couldn’t be Solved 

    The study of forestry, or tree management, was just beginning in the United States. Many states quickly had scientists set to work studying the blight. These scientists tried to figure out what to do to stop the spread of the fungus. Some scientists recommended cutting a few trees to look for the blight. Others thought that the blight would kill trees for only a few years, and then the remaining trees would be able to bounce back. 

    But the problem couldn’t be solved. Within fifty years, the American chestnut had disappeared almost completely. Scientists estimate that almost four billion trees died. In some places, the roots of the chestnut tree send up new shoots. These can grow for up to fifteen years before they, too, die of the blight. 

    The largest grove of mature chestnuts still standing can be found in Wisconsin. However, even these chestnuts seem to be having trouble. Will they last another hundred years? Or will they disappear like the other American chestnuts? 

Looking to the Future
    The American Chestnut Foundation is a group that is still working to bring back this once common tree. Through scientific research and genetic mixing, they are trying to save the American chestnut. They have planted thousands of trees in the last ten years. Some of these trees were planted on bare mountainsides that had been destroyed by coal mining. If the chestnut trees survive, what was once a muddy wasteland could become the American chestnut forest once again.

Fishing: A Poem for Students

 Early morning trips to the beach for sunrise photos inspired this poem. It's great to use with students, as some of the most reluctant readers will be happy to share their own fishing stories in response! You can find the full formatted text with activities here: April Reading Homework for Test Preparation.

Some topics to discuss with this poem include the use of repetition, author's point of view, imagery, and alliteration. I hope that you enjoy this poem!

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Fishing

In the very early morning,

when the sky is still pink with dawn,

early risers leave their beds and head outdoors.

Going to the magical places where the water meets the land.

Going surf-fishing, going river fishing, going lake fishing, 

Going creek fishing at a hidden place that only they know.

Fishing takes patience, 

and hope,

and luck.

Whether you stand along a river’s edge

or the steep banks along a lake

or the sandy shores of the beach.

A tackle box is filled with treasures:

Rubber crayfish with brown and blue arms,

Bright yellow and orange swirly things, 

Sparkly plastic worms that don’t look the least bit alive.

Treasures with mysterious names,

things that no one ever uses except for fishing--

like lures and sinkers and snells.

The fish don’t always come, 

or they don’t always bite, 

or they steal the bait.

But if you look carefully 

you might see other things:

a heron wading in the water, fishing with its beak

a dragonfly that lands on your arm,

a squirrel that watches you as you watch it.

When people are fishing they are friendly

And they like to show off what they have caught:

“Look at this one. Put up quite a fight. It’s not a keeper, though.”

They share bits of knowledge:

“The fish out here are too smart. They’ll take your worms right off the hook

Then swim away and eat them.”

Days of fishing last through the early morning hours 

Until the sun is just about overhead

And everything has heated up so much

That the fish go way down deep,

Or somewhere else,

Or wherever they go when they’re not biting.

And the people on the beaches, or the banks, or the docks

Pack up the things they have brought—the fishing rods, the lines, 

the tackle boxes of treasures

(And sometimes coolers filled with the fish they have caught)

And head away from the magical places

 where the water meets the land. 

The whole trip home they talk about the fish that were there

or not there

And the equipment they had

or should have had

And what they will do next time

Because with fishing, there is always a next time—

another creek, another lake, another beach—

Another day of getting up with the sun

And trying to outsmart the sneaky swimmers

of the murky depths.

by Emily Kissner

©2024. Permission granted for single classroom use. This text may not be resold or included in any products offered for sale.

Mysterious Mushrooms: A Text for Students

    When my daughter was 3, we had a particularly wet fall, which led to masses of white mushrooms growing in our lawn. Ever the vigilant parent, I tried to impress upon her that the mushrooms were not to be eaten. She took my warnings a bit too much to heart, however, and for the next month would not even run in the part of the yard with the mushrooms. Evidently I had scared her a little bit too much!

On our nature hikes, I tried to remedy this situation by pointing out interesting and beautiful mushrooms. Eventually she overcame her early fears and even joined us in that great delight of childhood, poking puffballs with a stick. If you're not familiar with these awesome mushrooms, puffballs give off a cloud of "smoke" (actually spores) once they have dried out. 

I noticed that some of my students shared my daughter's early mushroom fears, so I decided to write about mushrooms as part of a unit on summarizing. This text also covers some key science information! For the formatted version of the text plus activities, click here: Paraphrasing and Summarizing Lessons for Nonfiction Reading.

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Mysterious Mushrooms

    If April showers bring May flowers, what do September showers bring?

    Mushrooms!

    In many places across the United States, a wet end to summer leads to many, many mushrooms. They grow in forests. They grow on lawns. They even pop up out of the mulch around playgrounds!

    But what are mushrooms, really? Are they plants? Are they poisonous? Should we be afraid of these autumn mysteries?

Mushrooms: More like an apple than a tree

    Mushrooms are not plants. In fact, the mushroom that you see is only a part of a larger organism called a fungus. (When we talk about more than one fungus, we call them fungi.)

    Fungi have long strands called hyphae that grow underground. These hyphae feed on dead matter. In rainy weather, some kinds of fungi send up mushrooms. While it seems like the mushrooms appear overnight, they’re actually just a part of a larger organism—the fungus. This is why the mushroom is more like the apple than the tree.

    Apples have seeds. These seeds are how trees reproduce. Then what do fungi have? Instead of seeds, fungi have spores. Mushrooms produce the tiny spores. Spores float away on the wind. Some settle on the ground and grow new fungi.

Poisonous or edible?

    Everyone has heard of poisonous mushrooms. It’s true—there are some kinds of mushrooms that can be deadly. But millions of people pick and eat wild mushrooms every year with no problems.

    Mushroom hunters must know which kinds of mushrooms are safe, and which are deadly. Many wild mushrooms hunters stick to a few very common, very safe varieties. These mushrooms are almost impossible to confuse with a deadly mushroom.

    Mushroom hunters also must take good field guides with them when they are looking for mushrooms. It’s not enough to just match a picture. Mushroom hunters read about where edible mushrooms can be found, what they look like, and what their stalks and spore prints are like. They have to look at several sources of information to be sure that a mushroom is safe.

    When people aren’t careful, they can become very sick or even die from eating the wrong mushroom. Every year, some people end up in the hospital after eating the Death Cap mushroom. This mushroom looks like a safe kind of mushroom from Asia. People who know the safe mushroom think that the Death Cap mushroom must be safe to eat. Sadly, this isn’t the case.

    Some people worry that just touching a poisonous mushroom can be deadly. Luckily, for most mushrooms, the poison cannot be absorbed through the skin. If you don’t eat the mushroom, you can’t be poisoned. Some mushrooms can irritate the skin, however, so it's always important to be careful.

Fungi and Trees

    No one really knows how many kinds of fungi exist in North America. About 10,000 species have been described, but there might be more than twice as many.

    What scientists do know is that fungi are important to forest ecosystems. Fungi help to break down dead leaves and wood. Some kinds of fungi live next to the roots of certain trees. The fungi help the trees to get minerals and moisture, while the tree gives the fungi nutrients. Gardeners can even buy beneficial fungi to put in the soil around trees. These fungi help the trees to grow.

    Next autumn, try looking for mysterious mushrooms around your house!




by Emily Kissner

   ©2024. Permission granted for single classroom use. This text may not be resold or included in any products offered for sale.

Water Pollution: A Text for Students

 Teaching about water pollution is very important! Too often, though, text written on the topic quickly gets technical and too difficult for students to understand. I wrote this text as a cause and effect text that would also describe point and nonpoint water pollution. 

Over the years, I have used it for reading instruction and science lessons in both fourth and sixth grades. It's a workhorse text that provides good background for further investigation.

You can find the text and activities in this packet: Cause and Effect Texts for Nonfiction Reading.

Reading level: 4/5, Lexile 840

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Water Pollution

Water is an important resource. Every living thing on Earth depends on water. Sometimes, though, people add things to water that shouldn’t be there. This is called water pollution.

Point Source Pollution

  Point pollution comes from a single source. For example, suppose that chemicals from a factory flow out of a pipe into a river. This is point source pollution. 

 Point source pollution has been a big problem. Factories dumped huge amounts of waste into rivers and lakes in the 1800s and early 1900s. This waste included chemicals, ashes, wood pulp, and even dye. 

This pollution sometimes caused rivers to turn colors.  Some waterways became so smelly that no one wanted to be near them. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio became so polluted that it caught fire several times between 1936 and 1969. 

Serious point source water pollution can make wildlife sick. A fish kill occurs when hundreds or thousands of fish die at once. People who eat fish from polluted waters can become sick as well. 

 

Nonpoint Source Pollution

 Nonpoint source pollution does not come from a single source. It is impossible to find the exact place that nonpoint pollution came from. Run-off of oil and gasoline from parking lots is one kind of nonpoint pollution. Soil that washes from construction sites and farms is another kind of nonpoint pollution.

Nonpoint pollution can have damaging effects. Oil can contaminate drinking water. Soil that washes from fields can make streams and rivers muddy. This makes it harder for plants to grow. Pesticides that wash into waterways can kill helpful insects and other animals.

Both kinds of water pollution can cause damage to our streams, rivers, and oceans. Laws and regulations have stopped many cases of point source pollution. However, nonpoint source pollution can be harder to fight. Many people don’t even realize that nonpoint source pollution is happening with every rainstorm. By working together to find solutions, hopefully people can create ways to stop both kinds of water pollution. 

by Emily Kissner

©2024. Permission granted for single classroom use. This text may not be resold or included in any products offered for sale.

Decomposers: A Text for Students

  This week, I've been working to update my Paraphrasing and Summarizing unit. It's a unit that I wrote and added to over a period of 10 years, so doing a complete overhaul is a major undertaking! 

   As I work on it, I am looking for specific articles to meet reading level and content requirements. This one, "Decomposers: Delightful or Disgusting?" fits the bill! It's a text that I haven't personally taught with since I left teaching fourth grade, but I remember how fun it was to use with students. It's a great starter for a unit on the food chain or to introduce a bread mold experiment.

   You can find a formatted and printable version of
the article here: Ecosystems Informational Text Set.

Reading level: 3/4, Lexile 620

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Decomposers: Delightful or Disgusting?

Have you ever seen what happens when a banana turns brown and mushy? Then you have seen decomposers at work.

Have you ever looked at a rotting log? Then you have seen decomposers at work.

Have you ever observed an earthworm? Then you have seen a decomposer.

 Types of Decomposers

 There are many different types of decomposers. Mushrooms are a type of fungi. Fungi cannot make their own food. Instead, they absorb nutrients from dead things. They are decomposers. There are thousands of different kinds of fungi in the world.

Sow bugs and earthworms are decomposers also. Both of these creatures eat dead matter. Then, when their body gets rid of waste, the nutrients go back into the soil. Gardeners like earthworms because they make the soil nice and rich for plants to grow.

Some decomposers are too tiny for us to see without a microscope. These include bacteria and other tiny organisms. These decomposers are especially important! If you have every watched a banana rot, or smelled spoiled milk, you have seen evidence of these tiny decomposers. They do most of the work of breaking things down.

Puffballs are a kind of decomposer.

 A Part of the Food Chain

Decomposers are an important part of the food chain. They add nutrients back into the soil. They break down dead things.

 In the forest, you can see decomposers at work by looking at a rotting log. Termites and beetles eat the soft wood. They lay their eggs in the log. When the eggs hatch, the baby insects, or larvae, eat the decaying wood.

 Birds and other insect-eaters come to the rotting logs to feast on the insects. You might see a woodpecker or a wood thrush eating the bugs. Other animals, like foxes, might come to eat the small birds.

This rotting log provides food for many animals.

In the Compost Pile

Many people don’t like decomposers. They think of them as disgusting. 

 But other people know how important decomposers are. Some people even have compost piles. A compost pile is a place to put some kinds of kitchen waste, like banana peels and apple cores. When decomposers break down the waste, good soil is left behind.  This soil can be used in gardens. 

What do you think? Are decomposers delightful, or disgusting?

by Emily Kissner

©2024. Permission granted for single classroom use. This text may not be resold or included in any products offered for sale.

Creatures of the Day, Creatures of the Night: A Compare and Contrast Text

     When I was teaching fourth grade science, I needed a quick reading selection for students that explained the difference between nocturnal and diurnal creatures. I couldn't find what I wanted! In typical fashion, I decided to do some research and write my own.

     My research led me to making some fun discoveries in my own neighborhood. While sitting outside at dusk on a summer evening, I noticed that the barn swallows disappeared a few minutes before the bats came out. Swooping, diving barn swallows fill the same niche as the bats, but they are the day shift workers! Niche is an important ecological concept that comes up naturally in talking about nocturnal and diurnal animals, so I made sure to include it in the text.

Reading level: Written for fourth grade, but the use of crepuscular causes readability formulas to short-circuit. Which is why I view reading level formulas with some skepticism!

To find a formatted version of this text with activities to support science and reading skills, click here: Animal Adaptations Article and Activities.

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 If you spend time observing animals, you may notice that different animals can be spotted at different times. Robins and blue jays like to fly during the day. Bats and owls can be seen at night. Why do some animals prefer daylight hours, while others prefer darkness?

Diurnal: Daylight Creatures

   Creatures that are active during the day are called diurnal. These animals have special adaptations to help them do well in daylight hours. Many of them have good eyesight in bright light, such as peregrine falcons, dragonflies, and red-tailed hawks. Some diurnal creatures show warning coloration to scare off predators, like bumblebees.

Nocturnal: Night Creatures

Some animals are active at night. These animals are called nocturnal. Nocturnal animals also have special adaptations to help them find food at night. Bats use echolocation to find food in the dark. Owls can see well in the dark, and so can cats. 

Many nocturnal creatures have very large eyes. Big eyes help them to see in low light. Some nocturnal animals, like red foxes, also have excellent hearing.

Crepuscular Creatures

Many creatures are most active in the morning and the evening. These creatures are called crepuscular. They aren’t diurnal, but they aren’t nocturnal either.

Many animals that are sometimes called nocturnal are actually crepuscular. For example, white-tailed deer are crepuscular. People can usually see them early in the morning or at dusk in the evening. Cottontail rabbits are also crepuscular. Fireflies, the special insects that light up to attract mates, are crepuscular as well.

It’s All About Niche

  Why are some animals diurnal, and others are nocturnal or crepuscular? Different animals have different niches, or roles in ecosystems. No matter when they are active, all animals seek to find food and raise their young. For example, barn swallows are small birds that love open meadows and farmlands. They swoop around during the day, catching and eating insects.

Little brown bats live in the same habitat as the barn swallow. They also swoop around to catch and eat insects. But barn swallows and brown bats don’t compete. Why not? Barn swallows fly by day, while brown bats fly by night. Each has its own niche in the ecosystem.

There are many examples of day and night animals sharing a niche. Bees are well-known pollinators during the day. At night, moths take over, and pollinate large, fragrant flowers. Another example of niche sharing can be seen with owls and hawks. Hawks hunt rodents during the day, while owls hunt at night. 

 For many animals, being adapted to be active during the day, night, or twilight can help them to find food and avoid competition. Try observing some animals around your house. What do you notice?

by Emily Kissner

©2024. Permission granted for single classroom use. This text may not be resold or included in any products offered for sale.