Duck Overboard

Summarising the Main Idea

L.I. To look for keywords and phrases

Good readers notice key words.  Here are some clues to help you find key words:

• Key words are directly connected to the topic
• Key words are often repeated in the title and the text
• A key word helps you to remember an important idea

Use this table to help you summarise the main ideas in a text in your own words.  It is important that you use your own words to show your understanding and to avoid plagiarism.  If you don’t know what some words mean, look them up.

Keywords from the title Duck Overboard

Keywords from sub headings

New words I need to look up Stupendous Bound corroded undoubtedly Durable

Read the text and record key words/phrases that answer these questions:

What? A lot of ducks were floating around the ocean and floated to a lot of places.

Where? At the ocean, Hawaii, Indonesia, Australia, Japan, South America, North America, Hong Kong, Tacoma, Washington,

When? January 1992

Who? Rubber ducks, Scientists, Curtis Ebbesmeyer.

Why? Because a ship got hit by a storm.

How? The ship got hit by the storm then went down and rubber ducks were floating out of containers.

                     

Now using the words you wrote down summarise the text in 25 words or less. In January 1992 a ship got hit by a storm then sank down after heaps of ducks got out of containers and started to float.

LI: To identify the main ideas in a text

Today for reading we had to make a copy of our task. After we did that we had to write down what, where, when, who, why and how for the duck overboard. We also had to write keywords from the title, keywords from sub headings, new words I need to look up and we had to write down a 25 or less summary about the duck overboard. I learnt to identify the main ideas in a text.