Magnet Summaries Recipe

Note: This was done as part of the final project of my Senior Methods class. Any references made to my “field
placement” reflect this. It is part of a larger project where students write children’s books about particular systems
of the human body.

Class: __English__ Grade: __7th grade__

Date: __Day 3__ Class Duration: __85 minutes__

Common Core Learning Standard(s) Addressed

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7.2: Determine central idea of a text and analyze its development over
the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7.10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature,
including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6–8 text complexity band proficiently,
with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Learning Objective(s)
1. SWBAT identify magnet words and attractor terms in a grade-level informational text.

Assessments
● Formative: group-based magnet summaries, submitted on schoology (measuring ability
with the magnet summary strategy)
● Students will submit proposals for what they’re going to do their human body project on.
(measuring progress with the human body project)
● Exit Ticket: traffic cards (measuring comfort with the magnet summary strategy)

Justification/Rationale:
● Magnet Summaries: Being able to summarize informational texts is one of the big
tent-pole skills that is being assessed with the Kid’s Book Project. I hope to make them
more confident in their ability to summarize by giving an explicit process that they can
work through.
● Gradual Release of Responsibility: I’m not sure how much experience students have
with summarizing, or at least with being explicitly told how to summarize. Therefore, I
think it’s useful for me to demonstrate how the process is done. note to self: be explicit
in your think aloud
● Extended metaphor of skills as “recipes”: The students at my field placement are a
diverse bunch in terms of how much instruction they need to flourish. I want to try
something here by talk about the skills allegorically. I’m considering saying something
like, “These strategies are recipes. They’re directions that you can follow, but as you get
better at following them you can start to make them your own.”
○ This pulls double duty of giving the more instruction-reliant students an explicit
procedure to follow (the benefit of which I’m now realizing I had in spades),
while encouraging the more autonomous students to deviate without being
penalized.
 ○ I asked the Block 2 students whether they knew how to cook, and almost all of
them raised their hands, so the metaphor will be relevant.
● Project Proposal: The “Customize to Your Level of Comfort” idea is something that will
require scaffolding. I don’t want a repeat of what happened during my ENGL295 field
placement. There, the students were tasked with doing projects on a problem in the world
that they want to solve, and one student decided to do his project on The Titanic (“It
sinking was a problem.”). By giving myself a chance to ask students for clarification and
guide their initial line of research, I can reduce the chance that something similar happens
here.

Relevance (Connecting to Lives / Prior Learning)

● Identity: Going back to the use of the “recipe” metaphor, I chose this because it’s
something that they have experience with. During the lesson on types of conflict, the
video my CE used had a scene from Hunger Games, which a lot of students hadn’t seen;
as a result, the example of “character versus society” fell flat.
● Criticality: By giving students an explicit procedure to follow for summarizing texts, I
am hoping to enable them to think of themselves less as passive receivers of knowledge
and more as being able to draw conclusions themselves. Additionally, the proposal
assignment helps to put students in the spotlight, encouraging them to view themselves as
active participants in their learning.
● Joy: There isn’t much of a chance for joy during this specific lesson, but the line from the
example text about “[your blood pressure] is strong enough to shoot a column of blood
six feet in the air” will probably get a bit of a rise out of the class.

Activities/Tasks (with timing)

Introduction (17 minutes)
● (3 minutes) Take attendance.
● (7 minutes) Do now/First Five: “What’s your favorite book/movie/video game? Why do
you like it so much?”
○ Try to get students into the expository mood before class, in a way that doesn’t
feel as hamfisted as my attempt from the Communities Project.
○ Extra minutes here are for if students need more time, or for them to share out
○ As I move around checking in on people, distribute three index cards per student
to each table.
● (5 minutes) Before moving forward, ask students what positive stuff is happening in their
lives. Call on three or four raised hands, react positively to their answers.
● (2 minutes) while transitioning to the next part of the class:
○ students should put away their chromebooks. The only things they should have on
their desks are their journals and a pen/pencil
○ Script: “Okay, y’all, today we’re going to learn a trick for summarizing stuff.
How important do you think summarizing is going to be for writing a kids’
book?”

Direct Instruction / “I Do” (22 Minutes)

● (3 minutes) Give the “what makes a good summary?” and “New Recipe: MAGNET
SUMMARIES” slides

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 ○ After each good summary thing, ask the class why they think that’s important
○ Something I want to try (that I don’t really see being done) is to explicitly refer to
these as skills students can use. I want to use the extended metaphor of recipes to
refer to these skills, so I can say something like:
■ “For this unit, I’m going to be calling the processes you guys are using
“recipes,” and that’s a good way to think about them. They’re directions
that you follow, but as you get better at following them you’ll start being
able to change them and make them your own.”
■ I want to explain the reason I’m doing it and what I want them to get out
of it
○ Have students write the directions for Magnet Summaries in their notebooks. This
is something I want them to have down by the end of the unit, so the extra time
for them to write it down is well worth it.
● (5 minutes) I read through “The Heart of the Heart” aloud
○ “Okay, that’s step one done. Now on to…”
● (7 minutes) Read out the “Magnet Words” slide, show myself identifying the magnet
word of the passage, stop for TPQ, read out the Attractor Terms slide, show myself
identifying the attractor terms, stop for TPQ
○ magnet words slide: What does a magnet do to certain metals? Students can shout
out the answer
● (5 minutes) Show myself working through the thought process of putting together the
summary sentence.
● (2 minutes) Have a small movement break (two laps)
○ As they get back to their seats, students should move into their PALS partners.

Guided Practice / “We Do” (30 Minutes)

● (5 minutes) Have the students read through the first paragraph- whichever of the PALS
pair is taller reads this one. Each group should write down what they think is the Magnet
Word on the unlined side of one of their index cards, centered inside of what they believe
to be attractor terms.
○ “We’re looking for at least three attractor terms per paragraph!”
○ Tell students explicitly that a magnet word in one paragraph can be an attractor
word in another paragraph
● (5 minutes) Bring the class back together, and ask the class what they said the magnet
word was. Write that high up on the board. Then ask students what they thought attractor
terms were, and write 3 or 4 of those around the magnet word.
○ After I get done writing up on the board, I’ll model combining the words we got
into a sentence
○ Before I go to the next segment, ask “does any group have particular struggles
with finding either magnet words or attractor summaries?” and go to them as the
rest of the class keeps going
● (10 minutes) Repeat the previous two steps for the second paragraph (which bleeds over
into the second column), with the other student reading this one.
○ After writing stuff on the board, groups should construct sentences on their own.
They should write them on scratch paper (provide this!), then put the final
version on the back of the relevant index card.
 ● (10 minutes) Ditto for the third paragraph. Afterwards, if time permits, have a movement
break where the students take a lap around the room.

Activity: Proposal (10 minutes)

● Direct students to the schoology link, with a google doc for the proposal.
○ Depending on how easily they were able to do the other stuff in this lesson, they
might have more or less time for this. If need be, this can bleed over into the start
of day 4. This will be a google doc instead of a google form to ensure that anyone
who starts writing won’t lose their progress.

Exit Ticket / Closure (6 minutes)

● (6 minutes) As a closure, ask students how summarizing ties back in to the unit’s
essential question (“How do authors convey complex ideas in simple ways?”)
○ Students fill out their traffic light form, then come and hand it to the teacher’s
desk as they move to put their folders away.

Planned Supports and Differentiation

● The main differentiation that I have to make sure I include is increased scaffolding for my
Block One students. I might also adjust where I put the various parts of this lesson for
them, since they might struggle to do 60 solid minutes of text summary/synthesis.
● Having students do PALS reading and stopping to do group work between each
paragraph will hopefully cut down on fatigue.
● Between each paragraph discussion during the Guided Practice, I’ll ask if any groups in
particular are struggling and go help them. By structuring this lesson to be focused
around a specific procedure for a skill I aim to minimize the penalty that a lack of
prerequisite skills inflicts.

Anticipating Student Responses

● I think the biggest difficulty students will have would be with doing this kind of work for
this long of a time period. However, I’ll give frequent chances for students to get up and
move to energize them.

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