Description
What our Main Idea lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Main Idea develops reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. A foundational skill required for all in-depth analysis of literature and expository text, identifying the main idea is a critical skill that students will use throughout their academic and professional careers as readers. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify main ideas and cite supporting details to defend their identification of main ideas in expository and literary texts. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the orange box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives and state standards in this area.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
MAIN IDEA LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
The Main Idea lesson plan does not include any content pages. Rather, it provides a very detailed lesson plan, found on the two Classroom Procedure pages. It also includes an example passage for you to use.
MAIN IDEA LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Main Idea lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
MAIN IDEA ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
Students will read two passages and complete a chart for each that asks them to answer specific questions before, during, and after reading. They much also identify the main idea of each passage.
CHART PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet asks students to choose a nonfiction text of their choice and complete the chart on the worksheet. It asks them to answer specific questions before, during, and after reading. It also asks them to write down what the main idea of the passage is at the end.
MAIN IDEA BAG HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
For the homework assignment, students will create their own Main Idea Bag, which uses a collection of items or objects that are all related to the same topic. Students will first choose their topic. They will then find five or more objects and complete the provided organizer. Finally, they will explain how the items relate to their main idea in a paragraph.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the activity worksheet, the practice worksheet, and the homework assignment. However, all of the answer keys note that students’ answers and responses will vary. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
