Finding a fine mat

Finding a fine mat

Pencil and paper
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about finding details, then putting them together to find the main idea of the text.
Read "Finding a fine mat", pages 20 to 24 of "Paid Work" (a book in the Choices series). In this text there are lots of details about:

  1. Traditional skills are not practised much any more.
  2. Traditions change.
a) First, find details in the text about: "Traditional skills are not practised much any more." Quote, or give a brief description of the details:
Quote means to rewrite what you read in a piece of writing, exactly as it was written. We use quote marks to show that the words have been taken from a piece of writing without being changed. For example, "the fine mat that was reserved for the wedding was given for another fa'alavelave".
 

Page: ____

 
 
 
 

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b) Second, find details in the text that are about: "Traditions change." Quote, or give a brief description of the details:

 

Page: ____

 
 
 
 

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c) Tick  the box next to the main idea of the text.

  People are too busy these days to do things traditionally.
  People should learn about their cultural heritage. Business people know that traditional crafts are still valued.
  Families value traditional skills and customs – it is up to them to keep them alive.
  Traditions sometimes need to be done differently to make sure they survive.
Task administration: 

This task can be completed with pencil and paper.

Equipment: 

"Paid Work" from the Choices series, Learning Media Limited, 2000. A digital version is available here: "Paid Work" from the Choices series, Learning Media Limited, 2000.

  1. Remind the students that the main idea is what the author wants readers to understand is important and valued in the text as a whole.
  2. 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. In this task, two important groups of details are given. Details that relate to these will be mentioned often in the text.
  3. 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 explain a part of the text in your own words.
  4. You may also need to clarify the meaning of "traditions", and then what "traditional skills" could encompass. See Next steps.
  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.
Copyright: 
Material from "Paid Work: Finding a Fine Mat" - Illustrations and Typographical arrangement reproduced by permission of the publishers Learning Media Limited, PO Box 3293, Wellington, New Zealand.
Copyright © Crown, 2000. Text reproduced by permission of the author, Emma Kruse Va'ai.
Level:
5
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking
Keywords: 
comprehension, main idea, choices, evaluating, synthesis, Samoa, weaving
Description of task: 
Students are assessed on their ability to find details to identify the main idea of a text about cultural change in a Pacific context.
Curriculum Links: 
Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading:
This resource helps to identify students’ ability to:
  • evaluate and integrate ideas and information
  • locate and summarise information and ideas
as described in the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading at: http://www.literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz/The-Structure-of-the-Progressions.
Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Making sense of text: processing system, sets 6-7
Reading for literary experience, sets 6-8
within the Reading Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 

Everyone brings their own interpretation to text, so the following responses are not definitive. Accept other responses so long as students can justify why their details support the main idea. Some responses may be able to be justified as relating to both Traditional skills are not practised much any more and Traditions change.

a) Student finds details in the text that are about:Traditional skills are not practised much any more. For example:Page 21:

  • "It will be very difficult to get another one [mat] like it."
  • "There are not many weavers now who weave as finely as that."
  • "I think most of the weavers...are now over...in New Zealand. I suppose they are all kitting instead of weaving mats."
  • "…I sometimes wonder why I never learned to weave."
  • "...it is very rare to see a really good fine mat."

Page 22:

  • "I suppose everyone is holding onto the fine old mats because they are now priceless and can't be replaced."

Page 23:

  • "...times have changed a lot over here."
  • Reference to things being lost in the cyclone. [This could be interpreted as implying that equipment and materials used to make fine mats had been lost resulting in few fine mats being made.]
  • "Listen, I've found out about a women's business group who make fine mats like the ones our own mother made. [This implies that groups making mats of this quality are not common.]

Page 24:

  • "Just look at the pair of us – we are not able to weave a fine mat for our children..."
b) Student finds details in the text that are about: Traditions change. For example:Page 21:

  • "I suppose they are all knitting instead of weaving fine mats."
  • "Times have changed and I sometimes wonder why I never learned to weave."
  • "You could make a fortune because now they are being sold at the market and in some stores."
  • "A lot of people didn't like it [mats being sold] at first because it is not the traditional way, but as you know, sometimes there is nothing else, especially for us women. When we need money for family matters and children, we have to think hard, and there's no doubt that a good fine mat will get a good price."
  • "If I cannot get one from someone in the family or from our village, I will go to the market."

Page 22:

  • "I cannot believe they are selling fine mats at the market! I suppose everyone is holding onto the fine old mats because they are now priceless and can't be replaced."
  • "And, my goodness, to even consider buying one from the market! I don't know if I should laugh or cry."

Page 23:

  • "I have found out about a women's business group who make fine mats."
  • "They will weave fine mats for anyone who can pay."
  • "They will begin the work for a part payment"
  • "...you will have to send one hundred dollars."

Page 24:

  • "I think that I will accept the weaving of the fine mat by the business women."
  • "...they [the business women] are now providing a service to meet a need."
  • "...we are not able to weave a fine mat for our children, so we must work at other jobs and earn money to buy a good fine mat."
  • "...I agree that we should take this option" [buying a mat].
c) The main idea:Traditions sometimes need to be done differently to make sure they survive.
Diagnostic and formative information: 

At a) most students were able to find explicit details relating to Traditional skills are not practised any more. Most students had difficulty identifying details that were implied.

At b) about a third of the students struggled with the concept of tradition. From discussions with these students it became clear that their difficulty arose from not being able to think of examples of traditions. Interestingly, they found traditional skills much easier to understand, saying that the word skill helped them to think of examples.About half of trial students correctly identified the main idea Traditions sometimes need to be done differently to make sure they survive. The majority of the remaining students chose either the second or third option; most of these students had prior knowledge of the context and were making a purely personal response to the text, and in doing so, identified the incorrect main idea options. Only a very small number chose the first option.

  Examples of student responses Analysis of student responses
a) Page 21: "it is not the traditional way..."About a quarter incorrectly identified this as relating to a). This response was not accepted as students have confused "traditional way" with "traditional skills". The "traditional way" in this sentence refers to the tradition of making and giving mats within a family. The task was about "traditional skills" such as making a fine mat.
Page 22: "...I have not been able to weave a fine mat for my daughter because of my arthritis." This response was not accepted as it refers to a specific and personal reason for "traditional skills not being practised so much", not a general one.
Page 21: "I sometimes wonder why I never learned to weave." This response was accepted (even though it refers to only one person's practise of traditional skills). As one student explained, "Not many people weave fine mats now because they [like Tutasi] didn't learn how when they were young."
a) & b) Page 21: "I suppose they are all knitting instead of weaving fine mats." This response was accepted for both a) and b). It relates to a) because it is saying fine mats are not made much any more, and it relates to b) because it is also saying traditions are changing.
c) Just over a quarter selected the incorrect option:"People should learn about their cultural heritage. Business people know that traditional crafts are still valued." This group of students did not understand that a main idea cannot be expressed in two unrelated sentences. Some students justified selecting this response by saying one of the writers now wished she had learned to weave, ignoring the second sentence about business people. Students also responded to the judgemental obligation implied in the word should. One student said "those who can make mats should do so and not make excuses". Such responses signal students are bringing prior knowledge inappropriately to the task and ignoring the weight of evidence in the text.
Just under a quarter selected the incorrect option:"Families value traditional skills and customs – it is up to them to keep them alive." Here again, students brought prior knowledge inappropriately to the task and ignored the weight of evidence in the text.
Next steps: 
Students having difficulty identifying details that are implied in text:

Take a piece of text and model how you know that this relates to the given detail "Traditional skills are not practised much any more". Talk aloud as you do so. For example, take the piece of text from page 23, "Perhaps if we had not lost so much in the cyclone, then we would have a few more fine mats to use". Say: "Now I could take this sentence literally to mean that just fine mats got blown away by the cyclone, but I know that the mats are not all they would have lost in the cyclone. The sentence says they lost "so much", which I'm thinking refers to things that the people used to practise their traditional crafts and skills, like equipment and materials. So this sentence does relate to "Traditional skills are not practised much any more".Also see Inferring.

Students having difficulty understanding the concept of tradition:

Words like tradition will remain abstract concepts for students until they are able to associate them with concrete examples either from their own lives or from text. Because this group of students struggled to think of traditions in their own lives (which is not to say they don't have any, just that they couldn't link any of their practises to the word "tradition") they are very likely to need support to find examples of traditions in text. Begin by listing traditions you know their families practise. Ask them to add to the list and give these practises a heading. Stress, if necessary, that all the items in the list have been practised for generations. The students may come up with headings like "Things our families have done for ages", "Stuff our Nana taught us". Then ask them which word from Finding a Fine Mat might have the same meaning as the headings. Finally, discuss the tradition of making fine mats to give (not sell) to family members, and how it has changed over time.

Students having difficulty suspending prior knowledge to get to the main idea:

Almost a half of trial students chose emotionally weighted main idea options, appearing to bring their prior knowledge inappropriately to the task. To successfully establish the main idea, readers need to be objective about text. By combining the evidence identified for a) and b), students will make a decision based on evidence rather than one based on a personal response.

It is interesting to note differences between trial group responses for this task. One group had little prior knowledge of Pacific Island customs and was more successful at identifying the main idea, whereas those who appeared to have this prior knowledge were not as successful, being unable to suspend their prior knowledge for the task. This observation begs the questions:

  • If students are only ever presented with texts where they are familiar with the contexts, are we wrongly supporting this tendency to react personally to text and clouding a true understanding of it?
  • Are we presenting students with enough contexts that they are not familiar with so that they will be stretched and challenged to form new understandings about the world?
  • 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 Limited.
  • Derewianka, B. (2005). A grammar companion. Newtown, NSW: PETA.