Breakfast for peacocks

Breakfast for peacocks

Auto-markingPencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about the main idea of a text.
Read "Breakfast for Peacocks", by Jill MacGregor, Junior Journal 29, pages 10 to 16.

Question

a)  Choose the three pieces of information below that are most important to this text.

    • Jessie likes the peacocks.

    • The peachicks strut down the driveway.

    • The father peacock is beautiful.

    • Jessie feeds the peacocks with a spoon.

    • The peacocks eat the plants in the garden.

    • The garden is protected from the peacocks.

Question

b)  What is the main idea of this text?

    • Jessie likes the peacocks but they need to be kept out of the garden.

    • The peacocks are tame.

    • Peacocks eat all sorts of food.

Task administration: 

This task can be completed with pen and paper or online (with auto-marking).

Equipment:

Breakfast for Peacocks by Jill MacGregor. Junior Journal 29, Learning Media Limited, 2004.

What is the main idea?

  1. Remind the students that the main idea is what the author wants readers to understand is important in the text as a whole.
  2. You may wish to explain to the students that finding the main idea is hard, but that it can be found if they first work out what information is important to the text, i.e., the whole text. You may also wish to explain that important information will be mentioned more than unimportant information.
  3. Explain that a) assesses if they understand which information in "Breakfast for Peacocks" is important. Tell the students that first they need to read the article, then select the three pieces of information they think are most important to this text.
  4. Explain that b) assesses if they understand what the main idea is. Tell the students they need to think about the important information they identified at a), then select the main idea.
  5. The task can be done individually or in groups.
  6. Responses can be discussed by teacher and student only, or within larger groups. Group discussion has the advantage of giving students opportunities to consider others' ideas and to practise justifying their own.
Level:
2
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking
Keywords: 
main idea, comprehension, recount, evaluating, think critically, School Journal, Junior Journal 29
Description of task: 
Students are assessed on their ability to identify important information and the main idea of a recount about needing to take action. Junior Journal 29. Text provided.
Curriculum Links: 
Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading:
This resource helps to identify students’ ability to:
  • use comprehension strategies
as described in the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading at: http://www.literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz/The-Structure-of-the-Progressions.
Answers/responses: 
  Y4 (05/2007)
a) Students identify the three pieces of important information:

  • Jessie likes the peacocks.
  • The peacocks eat the plants in the garden.
  • The garden is protected from the peacocks.

Students identify all three of the above pieces of important information:
 
moderate
moderate
moderate 
 
very difficult
b) Students identify the main idea of the text:Jessie likes the peacocks but they need to be kept out of the garden.  easy
Diagnostic and formative information: 

This resource was trialled by 92 Year 4 students across a range of New Zealand schools.

a) Distinguishing between important and relatively unimportant information

Important information identified by students:At task a), trial students found it very difficult to identify all three important pieces of information while just under a half identified two out of the three. Just over a half of students identified the first correct piece Jessie likes the peacocks; just under a half correctly identified The peacocks eat the plants in the garden; and just over a half correctly identified The garden is protected from the peacocks. Many students did not appear to know that frequently mentioned details, in both the written and visual text, will always be important. For example, in this text there are many details about Jessie liking the peacocks, the peacocks eating the garden plants and the plants being protected from them.

Unimportant information identified by students:

The piece of relatively unimportant information that was most commonly chosen as important was Jessie feeds the peacocks with a spoon. Students may have incorrectly thought this information was important because it relates to Jessie's solution to the problem of the peacocks eating the plants in the garden. However, this detail is minor because it is seldom mentioned. Another unimportant piece of information that about half of trial students chose as important was The peachicks strut down the driveway. This information is given in the first sentence and so students may have incorrectly thought it was important because of its placement. However, its purpose is to act as part of the orientation to the recount and so, once mentioned, has no need to be repeated.

b) Identifying the main idea

Most students had no difficulty identifying the correct main idea at task b).About two-thirds of trial students correctly identified Jessie likes the peacocks but they need to be kept out of the garden.

Next steps: 

Students having difficulty identifying important information  

If students have identified relatively unimportant information in a) as important, it may be necessary for them to go through the text to find the details that relate to each piece of information. An effective way to help students actively make such connections is by photocopying the text and giving out highlighters. Assign a piece of information from a) to each student (or a pair) and ask them to highlight where detail(s) about this appear in the text. You may first need to model the process of finding details and deciding if they are important or unimportant. Think aloud as you do so. For example, 'Where in the text are there details about Jessie liking the peacocks? There are no details about this on page 10 or 11. On page 12 it says "Jessie says nothing". What does she say nothing about or who does she say nothing to? (Jessie does not respond to her mother getting cross about the peacocks.) I wonder why? Could it be because she likes the peacocks? Oh yes she does because it goes on to say that Jessie "loves it when the peacocks come to visit. She likes to watch the peachicks fluff up their feathers and have a dust bath. If Jessie is lucky, the father puts up his shimmering feathers like a fan." So these are all details that describe more about Jessie liking the peacocks. Here's another detail on page 13 "...but she also loves the peacocks." The pictures also show that Jessie likes the peacocks because she's smiling as she's feeding them. This information must be important to the text because there are lots of details about it. See how often your piece of information is talked about in the pictures and the words.' (Also see Self-assessment below.)

Students having difficulty independently identifying the main idea

It cannot be assumed that students who correctly identified the main idea can do so independently because this resource provides considerable scaffolding. For example, in a) the students only have to choose between six pieces of information, whereas if they were independently finding the main idea they would need to choose between all the information a text presents. Students are also scaffolded towards rejecting the three relatively unimportant pieces of information in a) because these pieces of information are fairly obviously not important since they are given considerably less weight in the text than the three pieces of important information.

Self-assessment

Involve students in the process of working out areas of success and need identified by this assessment task. For example, if students correctly identify the main idea at b), ask them to reflect on the information they identified at a). By combining this information, it should match the main idea they've identified. Clearly, many trial students did not reflect on their initial thinking otherwise their choice at b) would have aligned more with their choices at a). The value in rereading text to check and possibly change their initial thinking needs to be stressed to students.

  • Duffy, G. (2003). Explaining reading: A resource for teaching concepts, skills, and strategies. NewYork, NY: The Guilford Press.
  • Ministry of Education. (2003). Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4. Wellington: Learning Media Limited.