Readers,
One way we gain information about our world is through reading news articles. Examples of good news articles are on the Scholastic News website. Go to http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/scholasticnews/index.html to read an article. You can copy and paste the link.
We have been working on summarizing the main idea when we read - or another way to say it, "getting the gist." To help us with this, I want us to look at a digital tool called "tagging". When bloggers and other writers submit online articles, they can "tag", or label, the most important words and phrases. This allows people who are searching for specific information to locate their articles easily online. When writers "tag" words in their article, they think of the most important words and phrases, ones that stand out the most, and the words that show what the article is really about. In other words, online writers "tag" their Main Idea words.
Read one of the articles on Scholastic News. Write about the words you would "tag" as the main idea, explaining why you would choose those words. Then write a one-sentence summary about the article, pulling out the gist. I have given you an example.
