Flood

Flood

Pencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about locating details, then putting them together to find the main idea of a text.
Read "Flood", from pages 10 to 15 in School Journal Part 2, Number 2, 2004.
In this recount, there are lots of details about:
  1. Floods can happen without warning.
  2. Floods can be frightening and dangerous.
  3. Floods can cause serious damage to people's property and belongings.

Question 1Change answer

a)  First, find details in the text that are about:
     "Floods can happen without warning."
     Quote, or give a brief description of the details. Quote means to state what was written in the text, exactly as it was written. We use quote marks "" to show that we have taken writing from a text.
 
     Page 101112131415
     
     Page 101112131415
     
     Page 101112131415
     

Question 1Change answer

b)  Second, find details in the text that are about:
     "Floods can be frightening and dangerous."
     Quote, or give a brief description of the details:
     Page 101112131415
     
     Page 101112131415
     
     Page 101112131415
     

Question 1Change answer

c)  Third, find details in the text that are about:
     "Floods can cause serious damage to people's property and belongings."
     Quote, or give a brief description of the details:
     Page 101112131415
     
     Page 101112131415
     
     Page 101112131415
     

Question

d)  Finally, think about the three groups of details together to decide which of the ideas below is the main idea of the text. (Select one)

    • Floods can wreck people's houses in only a few minutes. I get scared when I hear really heavy rain on the roof.

    • Flood damage costs the country millions of dollars each year and can be very frightening.

    • Floods can happen quickly, they're scary, and they make a real mess.

    • Water levels can rise so quickly that people don't have time to pack their belongings.

Task administration: 
This task can be completed with pen and paper or online (with some auto-marking).  
 
Equipment:
"Flood" written by Sonny Mulheron, illustrations by Andrew Burdan. School Journal, Part 2, Number 2, Learning Media, 2004. 
 
What is the main idea?
  1. Remind students that the main idea is what the author wants readers to understand is important and valued in the text as a whole.
  2. You may wish to explain to 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. You may also wish to explain that important information will be mentioned more than unimportant information.
  3. Remind students that the text is made up of both the written and visual texts.
  4. Emphasise the need to justify responses with details from the text.
  5. This 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:
3
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking, Using language, symbols, and texts
Keywords: 
comprehension, main idea, recount, School Journal, evaluating, synthesis, SJ-2-2-2004
Description of task: 
Students are assessed on their ability to find details that relate to the main idea of a text about a flood. SJ-2-2-2004. Text provided.
Curriculum Links: 
Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading:
This resource helps to identify students’ ability to:
  • 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.

Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Making sense of text: processing system, set 4
within the Reading Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 

NOTE: Your students may find details not listed for tasks a), b), or c). The following lists are guides only; they are unlikely to be complete. Your students may disagree with some of the details listed or with each others' details. Regard disagreement as an opportunity for discussion.

  Y6 (11/2006)
a)
Students find details in the text about:Floods can happen without warning.
 
Page 10:
  • Ama and the cat were sleeping, suggesting a flood was not expected.
  • Ama's mother's commands "Quick, Ama. Get up!...Move! Now!"

Page 13:

  • Ama's Dad and sister 'were stuck in Wellington', suggesting they did not know a flood was likely otherwise they would have come home earlier.

Page 14:

  • The radio news saying "Over a hundred millimetres of rain fell in twenty minutes."
 One piece of evidence – easy
b)
Students find details in the text about:Floods can be frightening and dangerous.
 
Page 10:
  • The expressions on the people's faces and the cat's reaction in the pictures show that they are frightened.
  • Mum's commands express the danger of the situation – "Quick, Ama. Get up! There's a flood, and we have to get out of the house. Move! Now! Hold on to me."
  • 'When they opened the back door, more water came rivering in', suggesting the dangerous amount of water and how it poured in.

Page 11:

  • 'They clung to each other and tried to walk out onto the road but the road had turned into a cold muddy river.'
  • 'She couldn't hold on to her mother's hand any longer, and she couldn't stand up any more. It was too slippery.'
  • Ama looks desperate and calls "Mum! Mum, I'm drowning!"
  • The man taking Ama up to a hill, where she will 'be safe there', away from the flood.

Page 12:

  • The way Ama is portrayed in the top picture shows that she is frightened and anxious.
  • Ama sobbing to her mother "No – I don't want you to leave me. And I want my cuddly blanket."
  • When Mum says "Don't worry – I won't go near the flood" she is acknowledging it is dangerous.
  • How Ama walked 'round and round' waiting for her mother, and it seemed like ages shows that she is worried/fearful – the picture of her at the bottom of the page supports this.

Page 13:

  • The cat hiding away shows that it is scared.

Page 14:

  • 'Mum and Ama and the dog finally all huddled together in bed' suggests they were comforting each other because they had been scared.
 One piece of evidence – very easy
c) Students find details in the text about:Floods can cause serious damage to people's property and belongings.

Page 10:

  • 'It [the flood water] came up to her knees...When they opened the back door more water came rivering in.'

Page 13:

  • The news on the radio saying "State Highway 1 is closed…because of rock slips..."
  • Mum telling dad "The whole house is flooded…Up to a metre high. The computer, the beds, all our clothes – everything's had it."

Page 14:

  • The radio news saying "A state of civil emergency has been declared."
  • 'There was a lake at the bottom of the drive.'
  • 'Half the road was covered in water.'
  • 'Mum's car was underwater.'
  • 'Furniture, shoes, books, and all sorts of rubbish floated about in the filthy, muddy water.'
  • Dad saying "We'll start again..."

Page 15:

  • 'The inside of Ama's house all had to be ripped out and cleaned and dried.'
  • 'It was months before Ama's family was allowed back into their house.'
  • The photos show the flood damage.
 One piece of evidence – very easy
d) Students identify the correct main idea: Floods can happen quickly, they're scary, and they make a real mess. Moderate
Diagnostic and formative information: 
a), b), and c) Finding related details.
 
Most students found at least one detail related to each given group of details. A small number of students were unable to find any details. Only seven students made explicit mention of the visual text when giving details. It seems likely that many students did not consider the pictures as part of the "text".

The details that most students identified were explicitly stated. However, there are many that are implied. For example, in task c), the following details from page 14 are some that imply damage to people's property and belongings:

  • 'There was a lake at the bottom of the drive.'
  • 'Half the road was covered in water.'
  • Dad saying "We'll start again..."
d) Identifying the main idea
 
Just over half the students correctly identified "floods can happen quickly, they're scary, and they make a real mess as the main idea". About four-fifths of these students identified at least one supporting detail for each of the tasks: a) b) and c). Of the students who did not correctly identify the main idea, about three-fifths were able to identify at least one supporting detail for each of the details in tasks a) to c). This means that success in the earlier tasks does not necessarily lead to being able to identify the main idea correctly. Those students who were not correct at d) did not recognises that "floods can happen quickly, they're scary, and they make a real mess" was the only response that combined all the key words and ideas from tasks a, b), and c).

About one-fifth of the students chose the response "water levels can rise so quickly that people don't have time to pack their belongings". Although there are quite a few details in the text that support this idea, this response does not explicitly address that floods can be dangerous and frightening, i.e., task b).

Other incorrect responses by trial students were fairly evenly divided between the other two options.

 
Next steps: 
Students having difficulty finding details in both written and visual texts

For students who have difficulty finding details, support them to differentiate between key words and ideas that do relate to a), b), and c), and those that don't. For example, in task a), ask students what the key words in "floods can happen without warning" are. They are "without warning". Brainstorm words with similar meanings and illustrations that might be related to these key words.

Evidence you might expect to find in the text that relate to 'without warning':
In the words/written text: In the pictures/visual text:
suddenly, all of a sudden, quickly, fast, rushed, emergency. people looking startled, things happening quickly, the illustrations convey a sense of speed or urgency.

This will help students find details in both the written and the visual texts which relate directly to the key words. In any reading where students' responses seem only vaguely related, it will be necessary for them to work through this process of identifying key words, and justifying why they are key, and then eliminating and justifying the rejection of any words that are unrelated.

Students having difficulty combining the groups of details to get the main idea

Support these students by modelling the thinking process involved in combining the important information to find the main idea. For example: 

  • "So far, we've got quite a few details about floods sometimes happening without warning, quite a few about floods being frightening and dangerous, and quite a few about floods causing damage to people's property and belongings. Because these things are mentioned often, they tell us what the main idea of the text is. So the main idea must be something about all three of them together. Let's look at the choices of main idea given. Remember that the main idea has to combine our groups of details....."

In "Floods can happen quickly, they're scary, and they make a real mess", the key words 'quickly', 'scary' and 'mess', are a combination of the three groups:

  • floods sometimes happening without warning
  • floods being frightening and dangerous
  • floods causing damage to people's property and belongings.

Other resources

What's the main idea? https://arbs.nzcer.org.nz/research-and-articles#whats-the-main-idea

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 5-8. Wellington: Learning Media.