CCRA.R.2: Central Ideas, Themes and Objective Summary

Overview

Lesson Procedure

55-60 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5 minutes
2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5 minutes

1. Warm-Up5 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Two readers describe the same short story. One says, 'It's about a lighthouse.' The other says, 'It shows that a person can be lonely even while many people depend on her.' Which description is a topic and which is a theme? What would you need to find in the story to check the second one?"

   Take three answers. Establish that "a lighthouse" is a topic, a subject in a word or phrase, and that the second description is a theme, a full sentence about life that the story suggests. To check a theme, a reader needs details from several parts of the story, which is what "analyze its development" means.

2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes

   Key terms.

   • Theme (usually in literature) or central idea (usually in nonfiction): a complete sentence stating what the text says or suggests about its topic. It is not a single word and not a command.
   • Development: how the idea emerges, then is shaped, complicated or refined by later details.
   • Objective summary: the key supporting details and ideas in order, in neutral words, with no opinion, judgment or outside information.

   How the anchor grows from grade 6 to grade 12. Each grade-level standard below carries CCRA.R.2. All of them ask for an idea and a summary; the bands differ in how many ideas, how closely students trace development, and what kind of summary they write.

   Progression of CCRA.R.2 in grades 6-12

   Grade-level standard	Band and text type	What this band adds
   RL.6.2	Grade 6, literature	A theme or central idea and the particular details that convey it; a summary kept apart from personal opinion
   RL.7.2	Grade 7, literature	How the theme develops over the course of the text; an objective summary
   RL.8.2	Grade 8, literature	Development traced through its relationship to the characters, setting and plot
   RL.9-10.2	Grades 9-10, literature	In detail: how the theme emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details
   RL.11-12.2	Grades 11-12, literature	Two or more themes, and how they interact and build on one another into a complex account
   RI.6.2	Grade 6, informational text	A central idea and the particular details that convey it; a summary without opinion
   RI.7.2	Grade 7, informational text	Two or more central ideas and how each develops; an objective summary
   RI.8.2	Grade 8, informational text	A central idea traced through its relationship to supporting ideas
   RI.9-10.2	Grades 9-10, informational text	How a central idea emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details
   RI.11-12.2	Grades 11-12, informational text	Two or more central ideas that interact and build on one another into a complex analysis
   RH.6-8.2	Grades 6-8, history/social studies	Central ideas or information of a source; an accurate summary kept apart from prior knowledge or opinion
   RH.9-10.2	Grades 9-10, history/social studies	Adds a summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the source
   RH.11-12.2	Grades 11-12, history/social studies	Adds a summary that makes the relationships among key details and ideas clear
   RST.6-8.2	Grades 6-8, science and technical	Central ideas or conclusions; an accurate summary kept apart from prior knowledge or opinion
   RST.9-10.2	Grades 9-10, science and technical	Adds tracing the text's explanation of a complex process, phenomenon or concept
   RST.11-12.2	Grades 11-12, science and technical	Adds paraphrasing complex concepts or processes in simpler but still accurate terms

   Model text. Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) was an American poet. This poem appeared in her book Flame and Shadow in 1920, two years after the end of World War I, and she printed a subtitle under its title: (War Time). Read the poem aloud once without the subtitle, then tell students about it and read it again.

   1There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
   And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

   And frogs in the pools singing at night,
   And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

   5Robins will wear their feathery fire
   Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

   And not one will know of the war, not one
   Will care at last when it is done.

   Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
   10If mankind perished utterly;

   And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
   Would scarcely know that we were gone.

   • Topic vs. theme

     A student writes: "The theme of the poem is spring." What is wrong, and how can it be fixed?

     Result: "Spring" is a topic. Ask what the poem says about it and answer in a sentence: "The natural world will go on renewing itself whether or not people survive their wars." That sentence can be checked against the whole poem.

   • Where the theme emerges

     Lines 1-6 list rain, swallows, frogs, plum trees and robins. Where does the poem turn, and what does the turn do to those first lines?

     Result: Line 7, "And not one will know of the war," turns the poem. Read alone, lines 1-6 could be a simple celebration of spring; after line 7, every creature in them is measured against a human event, and the theme starts to emerge.

   • Objective summary

     Write a two-sentence objective summary of the poem.

     Result: The speaker describes a spring scene of rain, birds, frogs and blossoming trees. She then says that none of these creatures will know or care about the war, and that Spring would hardly notice if people were gone. (No "beautiful," no "sad," no "I think.")

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   A central idea in nonfiction. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) led a team of nurses in British military hospitals during the Crimean War (1853-1856). In 1859 she published Notes on Nursing, practical advice for anyone caring for a sick person at home. This excerpt is the opening of the chapter "Variety," from an 1898 American printing. It is a historical text and reflects the medicine of her time.

   Words to gloss: confinement (being kept in one place), paroxysms (sudden attacks), nervous debility (an old term for long-lasting weakness and low spirits), respite (rest or relief), nosegay (a small bunch of flowers), engravings (printed pictures), shew (an old spelling of "show"). The bracketed sidenotes were printed in the margin of the book and are numbered here as paragraphs 4 and 8.

   1To any but an old nurse, or an old patient, the degree would be quite inconceivable to which the nerves of the sick suffer from seeing the same walls, the same ceiling, the same surroundings during a long confinement to one or two rooms.

   2The superior cheerfulness of persons suffering severe paroxysms of pain over that of persons suffering from nervous debility has often been remarked upon, and attributed to the enjoyment of the former of their intervals of respite. I incline to think that the majority of cheerful cases is to be found among those patients who are not confined to one room, whatever their suffering, and that the majority of depressed cases will be seen among those subjected to a long monotony of objects about them.

   3The nervous frame really suffers as much from this as the digestive organs from long monotony of diet, as e.g. the soldier from his twenty-one years' "boiled beef."

   4[Sidenote: Colour and form means of recovery.]

   5The effect in sickness of beautiful objects, of variety of objects, and especially of brilliancy of colour is hardly at all appreciated.

   6Such cravings are usually called the "fancies" of patients. And often doubtless patients have "fancies," as e.g. when they desire two contradictions. But much more often, their (so called) "fancies" are the most valuable indications of what is necessary for their recovery. And it would be well if nurses would watch these (so called) "fancies" closely.

   7I have seen, in fevers (and felt, when I was a fever patient myself), the most acute suffering produced from the patient (in a hut) not being able to see out of window, and the knots in the wood being the only view. I shall never forget the rapture of fever patients over a bunch of bright-coloured flowers. I remember (in my own case) a nosegay of wild flowers being sent me, and from that moment recovery becoming more rapid.

   8[Sidenote: This is no fancy.]

   9People say the effect is only on the mind. It is no such thing. The effect is on the body, too. Little as we know about the way in which we are affected by form, by colour, and light, we do know this, that they have an actual physical effect.

   10Variety of form and brilliancy of colour in the objects presented to patients are actual means of recovery.

   11But it must be slow variety, e.g., if you shew a patient ten or twelve engravings successively, ten-to-one that he does not become cold and faint, or feverish, or even sick; but hang one up opposite him, one on each successive day, or week, or month, and he will revel in the variety.

   • Paraphrase in simpler, accurate terms (RST.11-12.2)

     Paraphrase paragraph 1 for a reader in grade 6 without changing its meaning.

     Result: "Only people who have nursed or been sick for a long time can imagine how much it harms a patient to see the same walls, ceiling and surroundings day after day in one or two rooms." The paraphrase keeps who knows it (old nurses and patients), the harm, and its cause.

   1. Find the sentence that states the central idea most directly. Give pairs three minutes. Teacher note: paragraph 10, "Variety of form and brilliancy of colour in the objects presented to patients are actual means of recovery." Other paragraphs give a problem, examples or limits; this one states the claim they all support.
   2. Turn it into a central idea statement in your own words. Teacher note: "Nightingale argues that giving sick people changing, colorful things to look at actually helps them get better." A strong statement keeps the word actually, because she insists the effect is real and not imagined.
   3. Use the sidenotes. Ask how the two printed sidenotes help a reader. Teacher note: they work like headings that name each section's point in a few words, so they are a quick check on a summary. They are not a summary themselves, because they leave out the supporting details.
4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students read the original story below on their own and complete three tasks: (1) write a theme statement as a full sentence; (2) fill in a three-row tracker, Emerges (paragraphs 1-3), Shaped (paragraphs 3-4) and Refined (paragraphs 5-6), with a quotation in each row; (3) write an objective summary of no more than five sentences. Grades 9-12 add a fourth task: name a second theme and explain in two sentences how it connects to the first. Quiz questions 14-18 check this work.

   1Jonah's first kite lasted eleven seconds. He had built it from a garbage bag and two dowels at his aunt Ruth's kitchen table, and when the wind caught it on the school field, it spun in a tight circle and drove its nose into the grass.

   2"Again?" Aunt Ruth asked. He shrugged, and she handed him the roll of tape.

   3The second kite flew higher and spun later. Jonah ran with it until his lungs burned, but every time he stopped, it twisted and fell. On the walk home he said that kites were for little kids anyway. Aunt Ruth said nothing. That night he found a notebook on his bed with one line on the first page in her handwriting: What did it do just before it fell?

   4He thought about that for a long time. Then he wrote: Spun to the left. Tail too short? Too light? Under that, he drew the kite from memory, with an arrow where the spinning started.

   5The third kite had a tail three times as long, made from strips of an old bedsheet. On Saturday it climbed, wobbled once, and steadied, a dark diamond against the clouds. Jonah let out string until the spool was nearly bare. He did not shout. He stood very still and watched it, as if moving might break something.

   6When they got home, he opened the notebook to a clean page. At the top he wrote: Kite 4. Under it he wrote: What will it do?

5. Closure5 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) In one sentence each, explain the difference between a topic and a theme, and between a summary and an analysis. (2) Copy one sentence from your summary of "The Third Kite," circle any word that judges or praises, and replace it with a neutral word.

   Teacher note on the 1859 text: Nightingale refers to the patient as "he" and writes from the medical knowledge of the 1850s. Students can summarize her argument accurately without accepting every claim as current medical advice; an accurate summary reports what the author says, not whether she is right.

   For homework: students read the original article below. The town and its numbers are invented for this lesson. Its paragraphs are numbered 1-6.

   1In the spring, a group of volunteers in the town of Millbrook set out to answer a simple question: how many trees line the town's streets, and how healthy are they? No one at the town office knew. The last count had been made on paper more than twenty years earlier, and the paper had been lost.

   2Over six Saturdays, 38 volunteers walked every street with clipboards and measuring tapes. For each tree they recorded its kind, the width of its trunk at chest height, and one of three ratings: healthy, stressed or dead.

   3They counted 1,240 street trees. Of those, 186 were dead and 291 were stressed. Of the 186 dead trees, 88 were ash trees on two streets near the river.

   4The numbers changed what the town did next. Before the count, the town council had planned to plant new trees in equal numbers in every neighborhood. After seeing the map the volunteers made, the council voted to remove the dead ash trees first, because falling branches were a danger, and to plant replacements where the gaps were largest.

   5The count also changed what the volunteers noticed. Several said they had walked the same streets for years without seeing which trees were dying. One volunteer, a retired mail carrier, said that the clipboards "made people look up."

   6The group plans to repeat the count every five years, so that the town can see whether the new trees survive.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which of these is a central idea statement rather than a topic or an instruction?

   AVolcanoes and the many people who choose to live near them BThe eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 CWrite about how a volcano forms and erupts. DVolcanoes destroy farmland but later enrich the soil.

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Lines 1-6 of "There Will Come Soft Rains" describe rain, swallows, frogs, plum trees and robins. What is missing from this scene, and how does the absence help develop the theme?

   ASound is missing, which makes the spring scene feel silent and empty. BPeople are missing, which prepares for the ending where we are gone. CColor is missing, so the whole scene seems gray and lifeless at first. DAnimals are missing, so the poem is only about plants and the weather.

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The phrase "not one" appears three times in lines 7-9. How does this repetition develop the theme?

   AIt counts the soldiers who will not come home from the war. BIt suggests that only one animal will remember the dead. CIt shows the speaker cannot decide which creature to describe. DIt stresses that no single creature in nature will notice us.

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   How do lines 9-10 develop the idea introduced in lines 7-8?

   AThey narrow it to the birds and trees growing in the speaker's garden. BThey reverse it by showing that nature will mourn the dead. CThey extend it from not caring about the war to not minding our end. DThey explain which side won the war and why nature stayed out.

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Teasdale printed the subtitle "(War Time)" under the poem's title. How does knowing it shape a reader's sense of the theme from the start?

   AIt sets the calm spring scene against a real war from the first line. BIt shows that the poem was written to be sung by soldiers on the march. CIt means that the poem describes a battle that happens in spring. DIt tells readers that the animals are hiding from the fighting.

6. Question 6 of 20 · Short Answer

   Grades 11-12 focus: name two themes in "There Will Come Soft Rains" and explain, in two or three sentences, how they build on each other. Cite at least one line for each theme.

   Show model answer

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 5 of the Nightingale excerpt, she writes that the effect of beautiful objects and bright color "is hardly at all appreciated." What does this sentence suggest about her purpose in the chapter?

   AShe wants to correct a neglect by showing why these things matter. BShe wants to warn nurses that bright colors can make patients sicker. CShe wants to explain how artists choose colors for hospital walls. DShe wants to admit she has never noticed these effects herself.

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Why does Nightingale mention the soldier and his "twenty-one years' 'boiled beef'" in paragraph 3?

   ATo show that army food was the main cause of illness in soldiers BTo compare the harm of seeing the same things to eating the same food CTo suggest that patients should eat more beef while they recover DTo prove that soldiers suffered more than any other kind of sick patient

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What kind of support does paragraph 7 add to the central idea?

   AStatistics from a large study of hospitals in several countries BFirsthand experience, both as a nurse and as a patient herself CA quotation from a doctor who disagrees with her view DA description of how flowers give off oxygen at night

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Paragraph 9 begins, "People say the effect is only on the mind. It is no such thing." How does this paragraph develop the central idea?

    AIt drops the central idea and moves on to a new subject. BIt agrees with critics that the effect is mostly imagined. CIt answers an objection by insisting the effect is physical too. DIt explains exactly how color changes the organs of a patient's body.

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    How does paragraph 11 refine the central idea?

    AIt adds a limit: variety helps only if it is introduced slowly. BIt adds a warning that pictures should never be shown to patients. CIt replaces variety with rest as the main means of recovery. DIt adds a rule that patients must choose their own pictures.

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In paragraph 2, Nightingale writes, "I incline to think that the majority of cheerful cases is to be found among those patients who are not confined to one room." What should an accurate summary say about this claim?

    AThat it is a fact proven by doctors in a published scientific study BThat it is a joke she does not expect readers to believe CThat it is a rule all nurses of her time already followed DThat it is her own judgment from experience, not a measured result

13. Question 13 of 20 · Short Answer

    Paraphrase paragraph 11 in one or two sentences, in simpler words, without leaving out any key idea or changing the meaning.

    Show model answer

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which sentence is the best theme statement for "The Third Kite"?

    ABuilding a good kite takes time, dowels and a lot of tape. BNever give up on anything, no matter how often you fail. CPaying close attention to failure is how a skill grows. DJonah's aunt helps him build three different kites.

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Aunt Ruth writes one line in the notebook: "What did it do just before it fell?" (paragraph 3). How does this question shape the story's theme?

    AIt turns Jonah from giving up toward studying what went wrong. BIt shows that Aunt Ruth thinks the kites were built badly on purpose. CIt ends the story's conflict, because Jonah stops building kites. DIt proves that Aunt Ruth has built and flown many kites herself.

16. Question 16 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In the last paragraph, Jonah writes "Kite 4" and then "What will it do?" How do these lines refine the theme?

    AThey show that he is bored with kites now that one has flown well. BThey show that he plans to give the notebook back to his aunt. CThey show that the third kite was lost for good when the string ran out. DThey show his learning goes on: now he asks his question in advance.

17. Question 17 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which is the best objective summary of "The Third Kite"?

    AJonah, a boy who gives up far too easily, builds two terrible kites, but his wise aunt teaches him an important lesson about patience, and his kite flies at last. BJonah's first two kites spin and fall. His aunt's notebook asks what the kite did before falling, so he notes the problem, flies a kite with a longer tail and plans a fourth. CJonah's third kite flies high on Saturday. Before that he writes notes in a notebook, and later his aunt hands him tape after his first kite crashes nose-first into the grass. DThe story is about kites and a notebook. I liked the part where the kite became a dark diamond against the clouds, because it was very peaceful and calm.

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Aunt Ruth says very little in the story. Explain how her few words and actions help develop the theme, citing two details with paragraph numbers.

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which sentence belongs in an objective summary of a story?

    AThe author does a great job of building suspense in the middle. BThe ending is unfair to the main character, who deserved better. CAfter losing the race, Mira trains every morning for a month. DI would have made the same choice if I were in her situation.

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write an objective summary of the Nightingale excerpt (paragraphs 1-11) in three or four sentences.

    Show model answer

These are the grade-level standards that carry anchor CCRA.R.2 in grades 6-12, plus closely related anchors.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.