Sample Lesson Plan

Instructor: Sam Roodi Date: December 7, 2015 Course Title: Communications 1 Unit: Summarizing Language Level: Upper Intermediate Length of Lesson: Three hours Topics to Cover: Identifying the main ideas, summarizing, paraphrasing, and plagiarism. Objectives: At the end of this lesson, students will be able to annotate expository texts, highlight the main ideas, write effective summaries and avoid plagiarism. Procedures Estimated times Content, Activities and Strategies Student Responsibilities 5 minutes 20 minutes 5 minutes 10 minutes 30 minutes 5 minutes 25 minutes 20 minutes 20 minutes 10 minutes 30 minutes 1. Meet and greet: the teacher makes small talk. The teacher asks students if they know what a summary means. The teacher asks volunteers if they could summarize the main events of their lives during the past week. After taking up the students’ answers, the teacher informs the class that, in this session, they are going to learn about summary writing. 2. Warm-up activity: the “eye of the group” game. The teacher divides the class into different groups. Each group appoints a representative who will be the “eye of the group”. The teacher shows a video clip of a Charlie Chaplin movie. Only the “eyes” of the groups can see the clip. Other students have to turn around and close their eyes. The “eyes” then summarize the video clip for their group. Finally, the whole class gets a chance to watch the clip and see if the summaries given by the “eyes” were accurate. 3. Introducing the concept: What is a summary and why do we need to summarize? PowerPoint gives a definition and highlights some of the reasons why students need to know about summarizing 4. Rules: What strategies can you use to be able to summarize a text? The teacher distributes handouts on summarizing strategies and asks each student to read one of the strategies from the list. The teacher discusses each item with the students and, in the end, asks students to keep the handouts in their 3 ring binders to be used as a guide for summary writing during the term. 5. Focused practice #1: Students learn more about the first strategy in summarizing the text, i.e., annotating and highlighting the main ideas. The teacher draws on students’ previous knowledge of paragraph writing and asks students if they know where they can find the main ideas of an expository text -- for example, the topic sentences in each paragraph, or the conclusion of the text. The teacher distributes handouts to make students further practice identifying the main ideas of a text and also leaving out unnecessary details. The teacher then talks to the students about strategies to use in order to find the key words (content words vs. function words) of the text. - Break 6. Focused practice #2: Students learn more about the next strategy, paraphrasing. The teacher discusses paraphrasing with the students and, with the help of a few PowerPoint slides, shows them how they can use their own words in summarizing a text. The teacher also shows the students how they can use signal phrases to write their paraphrases. The teacher distributes handouts and makes students practice paraphrasing a number of sentences and paragraphs. Students are encouraged to use dictionaries for this practice. Students also do practice on using topic/identification sentences, signal phrases and transitional words for their paraphrases. Students compare their paraphrases with paraphrases generated by a computer software (textcompactor.com) 7. Focused practice #3: The teacher further explains what being “objective” means in summary writing. Students are given handouts to help them make a distinction between expressions of facts vs. opinions. 8. Focused practice #4: The teacher discusses the problem of plagiarism with the students. The teacher gives the students handouts to practice identifying plagiarized summaries. The teacher asks students to edit a few passages and remove the plagiarized sections and improve the grammar and punctuation marks. 9. Self-reflection and self-analysis: students are asked to read through a checklist for writing a good summary and make sure that they have understood all the important points of the lesson. The teacher checks the students’ answers to make sure that the main concepts have been mastered. 10. Free practice: students are given two paragraphs to summarize, using the strategies they learned in this lesson. 1. Students greet the teacher and answer questions about what they have been doing during the weekend/week, or make comments on the weather, etc. Volunteers summarize the main events of their lives during the past week. 2. Students work in teams to summarize a video clip and take an active role in evaluating their own summaries. 3. Students take part in the discussion, answer questions and take notes from the PowerPoint. 4. Students read the strategies out loud in class and take part in the discussion and answer questions. Students learn to keep their handouts in their binders and be organized. 5. Students take part in the discussion and take notes from the PowerPoint. Students work in pairs to highlight the main ideas and find the key words of a few paragraphs. Students also do practice on identifying unimportant details and how to leave them out when trying to find the main ideas of different passages. 6. Students discuss paraphrasing with their teacher and take notes from the slides. Students write their own paraphrases and learn how to use a dictionary for this purpose. Students practice writing topic sentences, signal phrases and transitions for their summaries. 7. Students do practice on the difference between objective and subjective writing. 8. Students take part in the discussion and do practice on avoiding plagiarism and editing a summary. 9. Students put a check mark in front of the items on a summary checklist and discuss any areas, which might need further explanation with their teacher. 10. Students write two summaries, using the checklist for writing good summaries. To do after class The teacher gives the students an article to summarize for the next session. Materials: Handouts, PowerPoint, the internet, video, white board, markers, pen and paper. Resources: Douglas, S.R. Academic Inquiry: Writing for Post-secondary Success. Oxford University Press, 2014. Hacker, D. A Canadian Writer’s Reference. Bedford, St. Martin’s, 2004. Pharr, D., et al. Writing Today. Mc-Graw-Hill, 2014.