In the last 2 months, I learned how to read nonfiction better and how to take notes better. In this blog I will be teaching you some of the things I learned.
Here are some key points you need in order to have a good summary when reading nonfiction:
- Keep your summary short
- Use your own words
- What was the main idea
- Use details to support the main idea
- Use a text structure based on the text structure the author uses ( Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution, Cause and Effect and Chronological)
- Before you write your summary plan how you will write it ( graphs are best for Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution, Cause and Effect)
Cause and Effect Graphic Organizer by teacherspayteachers.com
When you take notes on a nonfiction text recognize the text structure, if it is Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution or Cause and Effect graphs are the best way to organize your notes. A Cause and Effect graph is shown above. Remember: notes are never full sentences.
Emma, Matthew, Jack, Jalyn, Victoria, Kathy, Liya, Taryn were in my group for the nonfiction reading unit. We studied volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes. Our research on those topics lead to different questions. One question I had was do all earthquakes happen because of fault lines and tectonic plates? After many days of research I came to this conclusion. Scientist believe that different things such as a collapsing cave can cause similar effects as an earthquake but all earthquakes happen because of tectonic plates and fault lines because if it wasn’t it wouldn’t be classified as an earthquake.
We did this thing called flipgrid. It is where we talked about our reading unit in a video. It was very fun.