Re: Articles Main Idea And Detail In Literary Text
Egeo Rainey
Learn how to implement a research-based text structure strategy that infuses text structures at every step of reading comprehension instruction, beginning with the introduction of the lesson, previewing of text, selecting important ideas, writing a main idea, generating inferences, and monitoring comprehension.
When reading a narrative text students are often asked about the moral of the story or the actions of the main characters. These ideas can be studied using a problem and solution and/or a cause and effect lens. Most novels, textbook passages, and short reading pieces may contain descriptions of events and sequences nested within the causes and effects of the event.
The Text Structure Strategy was designed, developed, and refined through many years of research. After the initial identification of the five text structures, Meyer and colleagues conducted additional research about what and how good readers remembered information (Meyer, Brandt, & Bluth, 1980). They found that good readers were able to take advantage of signals within the text to select important ideas and generate a gist. This gist helped them recollect more important information after reading.
Once this pattern was established, new interventions were developed to study whether children in elementary grades would benefit from being taught the strategy to identify signaling words, write a main idea scaffolded by the text structure, and remember more information (Meyer & Poon, 2001; Meyer et al., 2002; Meyer et al.., 2010; Williams et al., 2005).
In every instance, instruction about text structure was done as an independent skill to be learned separate and distinct from writing main ideas, summarizing, generating inferences, and comprehension monitoring. Our observations of teachers using these textbooks to guide instructional practices in classrooms show that teachers use the following sequence of activities to teach reading within the ELA classroom (Beerwinkle, Wijekumar, Walpole, & Aguis, 2018):
Main ideas can be generated at the paragraph level (pick some important paragraphs) and/or passage level. Regardless of which level the main idea is generated on, children are scaffolded with specific patterns based on each text structure. They are:
The TSS instruction focuses on guiding many of the comprehension promoting activities using one of the more complex and higher order text structures (comparison, cause and effect, problem and solution). Therefore, TSS applications use the text structures to guide selecting important ideas, writing a main idea, generating inferences, monitoring comprehension, and writing. That means the text structure can be introduced early in every lesson as the reading materials are initially previewed and throughout the lesson at every turn. This promotes students to connect their memory structures and comprehend using the logical connections presented by the text structures (e.g., What is the cause for the problem? Does the solution address the cause?).
Regardless of what topic is being taught and how the textbooks are organized, ideally, teachers would infuse important TSS ideas into instruction every time the students read and guide their activities and thinking around higher-order questions that are outgrowths of causes and effects, problems and solutions, and objective comparisons between ideas in the text. Text structures can be nested and students can compare the causes for the problems. If the textbooks (or teacher practices) present conflicting instructions on writing a main idea (e.g., first sentence and last sentence, Beginning-Middle-End) then refrain from using those and instead substitute the TSS main idea patterns that are logical, simple, and easy for students to use.
As students are completing main ideas, you may consider using a paired graphic organizer. Please note the following are the graphic organizers used in the TSS instruction reported in the research studies reported above: Additionally, note that the graphic organizers are used during the selection of important ideas prior to writing the main idea. This promotes logical connections and a strong main idea reporting the most important information in the text.
The TSS has been developed, tested, and refined over 40+ years and has consistently shown improvements in reading comprehension with children as young as second grade. The TSS approach presented here infuses text structures at every step of the reading comprehension instruction beginning with the introduction of the lesson, previewing of text, selecting important ideas, writing a main idea, generating inferences, and monitoring comprehension. An important difference between the TSS and other implementations of text structures is that text structures are integrated into each step and not an independent and separate step in the instructional process. The success reported in many research studies show that there is merit to this approach for classroom instruction.
If you are able to summarize the information in the passage in your own words,you have absorbed the correct main idea. To accomplish this goal, try the steps listed below after reading a short section of your textbook.
Understanding the topic, the gist, or the larger conceptual framework of a textbook chapter, an article, a paragraph, a sentence or a passage is a sophisticated reading task. Being able to draw conclusions, evaluate, and critically interpret articles or chapters is important for overall comprehension in college reading. Textbook chapters, articles, paragraphs, sentences, or passages all have topics and main ideas. The topic is the broad, general theme or message. It is what some call the subject. The main idea is the "key concept" being expressed. Details, major and minor, support the main idea by telling how, what, when, where, why, how much, or how many. Locating the topic, main idea, and supporting details helps you understand the point(s) the writer is attempting to express. Identifying the relationship between these will increase your comprehension.
When authors write they have an idea in mind that they are trying to get across. This is especially true as authors compose paragraphs. An author organizes each paragraph's main idea and supporting details in support of the topic or central theme, and each paragraph supports the paragraph preceding it.
The bulk of an expository paragraph is made up of supporting sentences (major and minor details), which help to explain or prove the main idea. These sentences present facts, reasons, examples, definitions, comparison, contrasts, and other pertinent details. They are most important because they sell the main idea.
Skimming can present problems if not done intentionally. Skimming is not simply flipping through a text quickly or paying half attention to it. When skimming, be deliberate and intentional with what you choose to read, and make sure that you are focused. Skimming is not a lazy way out or a half-hearted attempt at reading. Make sure that you use it carefully and strategically and are able to walk away with the main ideas of the text.
There are certain texts that lend themselves to skimming better than others. It is typically less beneficial to skim novels, poetry, and short stories or texts that do not have text features such as such as tables of content, chapter or section summaries, headings, bold words, pictures, and diagrams. Non-fiction texts, like textbooks, journal articles, and essays are typically full of these kinds of text features and are more suited for skimming.
Finally, know your context. There may be some texts that you are better off reading closely and thoroughly. Some professors specifically tell you that they include small details from the textbook on exams. You may have some classes that are just difficult to understand, and you may find that reading closely helps you comprehend concepts better. Before skimming, spend some time thinking about your classes, professors, and needs to determine if you have any texts you may need to read more closely.
Preview. Look through the text before started to read and focus on headings, illustrations, captions, highlighted items, end of chapter summaries, etc. These features give you an idea of the main concepts of the text and what you should focus on while skimming.
Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.
A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis, nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.
Table of contents
- Step 1: Reading the text and identifying literary devices
- Step 2: Coming up with a thesis
- Step 3: Writing a title and introduction
- Step 4: Writing the body of the essay
- Step 5: Writing a conclusion
- Other interesting articles
A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.
At this point the teacher rereads those two sentences and then removes them from sight. Kids have been found to have trouble translating text into their own words if they can still see the author's (Stein & Kirby, 1992), so it is a good idea to cover it or remove it during writing. Now the teacher writes:
In anticipation of next week's focus on literary texts, one of my favorite summarizing tools is SWBST (Somebody Wanted But So Then). This allows students to identify the main character (somebody), their goal (wanted) the problem or what gets in their way of obtaining their goal (But), how they try to face those obstacles and get to their goal (So), and how the story resolved (then). I have used this quite often (using GRRM) with students in Grades 4-8 to summarize literary works (and movies) and they love it. It's very concrete and manageable for them to find or infer the relevant information, and then use it to write a one sentence summary. I use the following as one of the "easy" stories to model for students how this goes: The pigs WANTED to build their homes and live in peace, BUT the wolf was trying to eat them and destroyed 2 of their houses in the process, SO the pigs all piled into their sibling's sturdy brick house, THEN they captured the wolf in a pot of boiling water and were never disturbed again.
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