Feathery Friends

Feathery Friends

Pencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about finding the main idea of the text.
A teacher read Feathery Friends by Minnie Binihi Takaro (pages 2-7, Connected 1, 2001) to her class. Then she asked, "what's the main idea?"
 
Jake said, "it's about the rat never having seen such a weird collection of feet."
Sina said, "different birds have different sorts of feet because they live in different places."
Pita said, "some birds have small feet and some have large feet."
Anna-Marie said, "there are birds that have webbed feet and birds that have long toes."

Question 2Change answer

a) Read Feathery Friends by Minnie Binihi Takaro and decide whose answer (Jake, Sina, Pita, or Anna Marie's) most clearly shows the main idea.
    Think carefully about each answer as well as what is written in the text.
    Give as many reasons as you can to support your choice.
 
     The answer that most clearly shows the main idea was given by: JakeSinaPitaAnna-Marie
     I think this because:

Question 2Change answer

b) Decide which of the four answers least clearly shows the main idea.
     Think carefully about each answer as well as what is written in the text.
     Give as many reasons as you can to support your choice. 
     The answer that least clearly shows the main idea was given by: JakeSinaPitaAnna-Marie
     I think this because:
Task administration: 
This task can be completed with pencil and paper or online (without auto marking).
 
Equipment:
"Feathery friends" by Minnie Binihi Takaro, Connected 1, Learning Media, 2001
  • Remind the students that the main idea is what the author wants readers to understand is important and valued in a text.
  • 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 which information is important to the text. Explain that important information will be mentioned more than unimportant information.
  • Explain that a) assesses if they are able to give reasons to support their choice of which statement offers the best explanation of the text's main idea.  This might be done with a mixture of quotes from the text and description. You may need to explain that when you give a "quote" you copy the exact words from the text, and when you give a "description" you write about a part of the text in your own words.
  • Explain that b) assesses if they are able to give reasons to support their choice of which statement contains the least satisfactory explanation of the text's main idea.
  • The task can be done individually or in groups. Responses can be discussed by the teacher and a student, or within larger groups.
  • "Feathery Friends" might be read by students it over a couple of sessions, perhaps in structured parts, or be read to students as a shared text, or be read with students in a guided manner (either as a whole class or in small groups).
Copyright: 
"Feathery friends" by Minnie Binihi Takaro, Connected 1, Learning Media, 2001
Level:
3
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking, Using language, symbols, and texts
Keywords: 
main idea, inference, comprehension, connected, think critically, birds, adaptation, transactional, information text
Description of task: 
Assessment focus: deciding which description of the main idea of an informational text is most appropriate, and justifying their thinking. The text used is about the adaptation of bird's feet to their environment.
Curriculum Links: 
Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading:
This resource helps to identify students’ ability to:
  • use comprehension strategies
  • locate and summarise ideas

as described in the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading at: http://www.literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz/The-Structure-of-the-Progressions.

Answers/responses: 
    Y6 (08/2006)
a)
Sina's answer most clearly shows the main idea – 'Different birds have different sorts of feet because they live in different places.'
 
Comment: Sina's main idea suggests she has gathered and grouped details from across the text – probably about size, shape, and environment, and has then combined those groups in order to find the main idea.
 easy
b)
Jake's is the least satisfactory answer – 'It's about the rat never having seen such a weird collection of feet.'
 
Comment: Jake's description of the main idea is made up of only one detail (the last sentence on p.3). Because it does not take into account details from across the text, two essential steps in the process of finding the main idea have been missed: Related details from across the text have not been grouped; and those groups have not been combined in order to find the main idea.
 
Pita – 'Some birds have small feet and some have large feet' and Anna-Marie – 'There are birds that have webbed feet and birds that have long toes' both go a little further than Jake in attempting to convey what the author wants readers to understand is important and valued in the text.
 
Comment: However, Pita's answer only focuses on the size of birds' feet and fails to recognise the importance of shape and the link between size, shape and environment, and Anna-Marie's answer only focuses on the shape of birds' feet, and fails to recognise the importance of size and the link between shape, size and environment. Both Pita and Anna-Marie have succeeded in grouping one limited set of details (Pita: size; Anna-Marie: shape) but because only one set of details has been used the essential step of combining two or more groups of details from across the text has been missed.
 difficult
Diagnostic and formative information: 

a) While most students correctly identified Sina's description of the main idea as being the most satisfactory, there was a wide range in students' abilities to justify their choice. Examples of this range are provided below:

Example of student reasoning Analysis of student answer
  • Sina because she is smart.
  • Because that's what the story was about and it was the main idea.
 These responses are not justified.
  • Because this is very true because different birds do live in different places and have different feet.
  • The birds do live in different places like the kiwi lives on the ground and the other birds live in the trees.
 These responses use prior knowledge as the only source of evidence rather than giving primary consideration to what is written in the text.
  • Because it's not just about big and small feet, webbed feet and long toes, and what the rat thinks about weird feet. It's about birds using their feet in their natural habitat.
 This response is derived by a process of elimination, i.e., the other answers were not as good as Sina's. It implies an understanding about the link between the shape and size of feet and the environment, but it is not entirely clear that this student has combined groups of details about size and shape, and the environment in order to find the main idea.
  • Because each of the birds told the rat about their feet and how they are useful for their surroundings.
  • Because in the book it says they have different feet for different parts of the land.
 These responses integrate evidence from across the text. They suggest the students have gathered details (probably about size and shape, and environment), grouped those details, and combined the groups in order to find the main idea.

Of the students who did not identify Sina's answer as most clearly showing the main idea, 12% of students selected Jake's answer, 'It's about the rat never having seen such a weird collection of feet' as the best. Many thought Jake's was the main idea because part of it was specifically mentioned in the text, e.g., It says in the book it is about a weird collection of feet.  

b)  There was a wide range in students' abilities to justify their choice of Jake's as the least satisfactory description of the main idea. Examples of this range are provided below:

Example of student reasoning Analysis of student answer
  • His answer wasn't that good
 This responses are not justified.
  • Because he didn't tell us much
  • Because all Jake said was that the birds have weird feet. If you didn't read the story you would have no idea what he is talking about.
 These responses identify a lack of information as a problem but do not explain what information should have been included.
  • Because birds do not have weird feet – they have useful feet.
 This response implies an understanding of the main idea but does not state why Jake's answer cannot be justified.
  • Because that's just what Rodney the Rat says
  • The "weird feet" is not actually the main idea – it is the opinion of one character.
 These responses recognise that Jake's thinking focuses only on one detail. They imply an understanding that details need to be gathered from throughout the text.

Of the students who did not identify Jake's as the answer that least clearly explained the main idea, most selected either Anna-Marie's or Pita's answer as the least clearly explained. Nearly all these students correctly identified that these answers focused on only part of the main idea; although they did not seem to appreciate that, of the three incorrect answers, Jake's was the least satisfactory because it used only one detail.

Next steps: 
Students having difficulty identifying the main idea.
Students who chose Jake, Pita, or Anna-Marie's descriptions of the main idea are focusing on only some details, and may not recognise the need to combine details from across the text to find the main idea.
  • Using a large piece of paper, support students to make a note of the text's details. You may wish to scaffold learning by suggesting that students look for two groups of details: foot size and shape, and the environment..
  • Once details have been noted on the sheet, encourage a discussion about how these two groups might be combined to form the main idea. Prompts might include: "What is the link between the shape and size of the birds' feet and their environment?", "Why are webbed feet useful to ducks (who get their food from the water)?" and "What foot shape and size would be useful to a bird that lives in mud flats?"
 
Students having difficulty inferring
Students who chose Jake's answer as best might have been drawn to this answer because it includes a quote from the text. This might reflect on over-reliance on details specificially mentioned in a text, and might indicate a need to develop further inferencing skills..
  • Support these students to appreciate that important information is often not explicitly stated, by asking them to find details about foot size and shape.
  • Tell the students that these words are not explicitly mentioned in the text so they will not be able to rely on finding quotes that include these words; instead, they will have to find words associated with/to do with the words "size" and "shape".
  • Give the students some time to look at the pictures to help them get some ideas. If necessary, prompt by asking, "If you were describing the size of your feet to someone, what words would you use…Look at the hand of the person next to you...What shape is it?" Note words associated with size and shape on the whiteboard. These may include: long; thin; big; small; tiny; fat; skinny; strong; flat; round…
  • Read the text to the students while they follow the story in their own copies, thinking about words associated with size and shape as they listen and read. Stop to allow them time to write down the words on a large piece of paper.
Duffy, G. (2003). Explaining reading: A resource for teaching concepts, skills, and strategies. NewYork, NY: The Guilford Press.

Ministry of Education. (2006). Effective literacy practice in years 5 to 8. Wellington: Learning Media.