Nancy - No, I think that the structure of the text is a different thing from the main idea. Structure is looking at the how the author organized his or her ideas. Main idea is looking at the meaning of the text. Here's an example: The hungry cow awoke from his nap and walked out into the grassy field. He looked all around for the perfect grazing spot, trying to find some shade on the hot, hot day. The cow mooed loudly to scare away the bunny that seemed to have taken the shady tree for his own. Finally, the cow began grazing on the shady lawn. The structure of the text is basically sequential, right? First the cow did this, then the cow did that. But the main idea of the text is that the cow was hungry and found somewhere to graze. Nonfiction text typically follows one of the most common structures: main idea/details, descriptive, cause/effect, sequential..... often switiching between structures. What test-makers ask kids to do is to find the "main idea" - and that is different from recognizing how the text is organized. I also think that looking for a "main idea" is a different thing than thinking about author's intent. And I agree with you that how are we ever supposed to truly know an author's intent without asking the author! We can only infer it, right? Dana
----- Original Message ---- From: Nancy Hagerty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 8:20:35 PM Subject: Re: [Understand] Main Idea So, Dana if you are looking at the structure of the text are you really looking at the main idea? I am a voracious reader and writer and I have always struggled with the concept of main idea on a test. I can justify my answers orally until the cows come home, but on a test...problems. I remember reading Shakespeare in high school and my teacher telling me that I was not understanding it the way that Shakespeare meant it to be. My question was how did she know how he meant it to be understood? Obviuosly there is usually a surface main idea, but upon further readings comprehension grows, which often clouds the "exact" main idea. I find it easier to identify in non-fiction informational text, but then it depends on the way the author writes. So, when we don't neccessarily agree with the author's main idea (or what the test claims that to be) what are we to do? Will teaching text structure help people like me? There seems to be many ways that an author can write the main idea. I am not sure how to best teach my kiddos. I still maintain that they have to be flexible in their thinking. Nancy >>> Dana Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 07/30/08 12:39 PM >>> I do think we need to teach main idea as a text structure. I know from my own reading of my grad school text books that there is often a main idea of the text. Perhaps it takes the forms of a central idea with examples to follow or maybe a series of ideas where the reader has to infer a bigger idea from it. But I do recognize main idea as a form of text structure often in my own reading. It sounds to me that this is different from the strategy of determining importance. At one of Stephanie Harvey's workshops, she spoke of an activity were the kids read a short nonfiction article and afterwards wrote what THEY thought was most important to remember and then what did they think the AUTHOR wanted them to remember. I think this addresses Ellin's point that we, as readers, might not always agree with the author's "main idea" because of what we bring to the text. In my mind, these are 2 separate issues. One is looking at the structure of the text and the other is looking at the meaning of the text. Dana _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
