Sway Summary Synthesis

Blended learning is more that tech integration; it is about tailoring or allowing students some control  to meet needs of diverse learners. Students benefit with explicit instruction about how to find the right Lexile levels for them with Newsela, Readworks, and/or Common Lit.

For the lesson below, ability grouping works well for partners or groups. When working

collaboratively, those discussions about the task model the internal discussions students will need to have in future independent work.

Google classroom? Use Google Slides!

1. Students select an article from a source. You can give specific text sets in Newsela to focus discussion on text that supports current novel being read.

2. Group reads, making notes for a GIST summary of who, what, where, when, why, how and then write a 20 word GIST. Blended learning involves online instruction: create a video modelling GIST summarizing with a common text.

3. Students create a collaborative Sway for the 5W and H and 20 word GIST. Since it is collaborative, they can all work on it at the same time. 

4. Students share in a discussion board in an LMS or a platform like Edmodo.

5. Students critique at least 2 articles. Reading the article, viewing the Sway, and responding with one of the stems:

• The summary needs more information about...
• The summary is strong because...
• I want to learn more about...
• This reminds me of...

6. Groups go back to revise Sway. 

Use template below if you wish! Have students click on website link and save to their own Office 365 account. 

A huge shout out to JMozi for being the perfect fellow ELA tech educator to collaborate with! Philosophical alignment + different enough brains to build upon each other + a mutual respect = this lesson we co-created!