Good readers determine what is important in the reading.
Determining Importance Involves:
- Distinguishing between important information and interesting details to decide what to learn.
- Understanding how details help develop and support a larger topic.
- Merging purpose for reading, questions, and background knowledge to decide which information is important.
Reasons to Determine Importance
- In life, one continually makes decisions about what is important, setting priorities andselecting what must be done now and what can wait . . . what to notice on the CNN news screen, what to ignore . . . which dishes for Thanksgiving dinner to cook from scratch and which dishes to purchase already prepared at the grocery store.
- In reading, too, one must hone his or her skills of discriminating between what is important and what is not. Readers must practice making decisions about what is important in the text, not just do assignments for which the teacher has already determined what is important. The process of sifting through the information brings a deeper understanding.
What You Can Do
- As you read, pause and think about how you determine importance:
* The most important information seems to be . . .
* That is interesting, but what seems to be more important . . .
* This is important because . . .* I think the big idea here is . . .
- Give yourself a purpose for reading. For example, as you read an assignment, use small sticky notes to mark the three (or however many) points you think are most important in the piece.
- Ask what you will be expected to do with the information in your notes after you have finished reading. Will you discuss with a small group? Write a summary? Make a poster? Use the notes to review for a test?
- Compare your notes with peers’ notes and with your teacher’s ideas about what is important in the reading. Add any critical information that is missing from your notes.
- Notice the text features in the book for your course. Often the format of nonfiction text (boxed info, boldface ideas, etc.) alerts one to importance.
Chapter 4 Assignment
While reading chapter 4 (pages 66-83), determine importance. Think about what you have read in the book so far (not just chapter 4!) related to intolerance/prejudice, dreams/plans, and the characters.
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2 comments:
Charlie and Lennie have dreamt of having their own land and crops for a very long time now. It is amazing that their dream seems impossible for them to reach when millions of people all around our country can say that they really have all the things Charlie and Lennie want. This is when the difference in time really stands out. The fact that Charlie even have big dreams like this really shows their character. The jobs that they are doing right now are obviously not what they wanted to spend the rest of their lives doing. So dreaming big and trying to make a better life for themselves proves that they have the will and determination to push through the hard times in order to reach their goals.
Although the founding fathers of our country thought that everyone should be able to achieve their dreams, this chapter clearly demonstrates that this isn't always practical. Its not easy, and it definitely isn't fair... but some peoples dreams seem simply out of reach. Charlie and Lennie's dreams are obviously hard to obtain; their own farm and crops is hardly an easy thing to come by. A lot of people get everything they want and really take it for granted, which is really an important theme in this book.
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