Text Type: Nonfiction
Page Count: 22
Word Count: 1,948 

Text Summary
Jazz is one of the most exciting, vital forms of music in the world today. Use this leveled reader to introduce your students to jazz artists from the past and present. Innovative, world-famous musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday, and Wynton Marsalis are profiled in this passionate and informative exploration of jazz music. 

About the Lesson 

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Summarization

Objectives

• Identify main idea and supporting details
• Identify and use adverbs
• Recognize and use content vocabulary

Materials

• Book - Jazz Greats (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry-erase board
• Main Idea and Details, Adverbs, Content Vocabulary Cryptogram worksheets

    Indicates an opportunity to use the book interactively. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are not consumable.)

Vocabulary

• Content words: bebop, improvise, innovators, melodic, plantation, quarters, scat, spontaneity, woo

Build Background

• Involve students in a discussion about music. Create a fact web on the board with the center circle titled "music." Ask students to tell about different types of music. Then have the students name artists that belong with each type. Elicit jazz as a type of music if not offered by students.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Summarization

• Give students a copy of the book and have them preview the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers and offer ideas as to what kind of book this is and what it might be about.
• Direct students to the table of contents. Remind students that the table of contents provides an overview of what the book is about. Each chapter title provides an idea of what they will read in the book. After reviewing the table of contents, model using it to summarize what the book is about.
• Think aloud: To summarize what I've read in the table of contents, I need to think about what's important and what isn't. It seems to me that all of the chapter titles must be important, or they wouldn't be included here. When I'm summarizing something, I need to put it into my own words. Otherwise I'm just copying what the author wrote. So I can summarize the table of contents by saying that I've learned that this book is going to tell me about how jazz began, some of the people who play jazz, and what jazz is like today.
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at photos, captions, maps, and sidebar text.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Remind students of the strategies they can use to work out words they don't know. For example, they can use what they know about letter and sound correspondences to figure out the word. They can look for base words, prefixes, and suffixes. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Point out a word in bold, such as the word melodic on page 4. Model how students can use 2 strategies to figure out the meaning of the word. Tell students that the first strategy is to look for the base word, melody. Tell students that when you hear the word melody you think of pretty music. Tell students that now that you have some idea of what the word means, you can use the second strategy, which is context. You've read in the first part of the sentence that some types of jazz are fast and wild. The first part of the sentence is connected to the second part by the word or, which tells you that whatever comes next is different. The music is opposite of fast and wild, or slow and gentle. Now, you'll read the sentence to see if that makes sense.
• Remind students that they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentence.
• For additional teaching tips on word attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students pause at the end of each chapter and quickly summarize what they have read. Students can summarize mentally or use a pencil and scrap paper.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read the first 2 chapters and then pause. Tell students to go back and reread both chapters if they finish before everyone else.
• Model summarizing the first chapter.
• Think aloud: As I read the chapter, I thought about the words, phrases, and sentences I thought were most important. The first 2 paragraphs were "hooks" to get me interested in reading the book. The third paragraph tells me when jazz began. The next paragraph tells me what had a big influence on jazz. The last paragraph describes some of the different ways slaves used music. I can see that some of the words and phrases aren't important details. They might tell interesting information, but I won't include them in the summary. I can summarize like this: Although jazz in the United States became popular in the early 20th century, it was heard on southern plantations before the Civil War. Jazz music has been influenced by the music created by African-American slaves. The slaves wrote and sang songs, and made and played instruments.
• Reinforce that a summary tells the main idea and important details about the text. Unimportant information is not used. Discuss how students will decide what information is important and what is not.
• Tell students to read the remainder of the book, remembering the important information they will want to include in their summaries.

    Tell the students to make a small question mark in their books beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

Reflect on the Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using word-attack strategies and context clues.
• Reinforce that mentally summarizing each chapter will help them understand and remember what they have read.

Comprehension: Main Idea and Details

• Explain that every writer has a main idea in mind for a book when he or she writes it. In addition, the writer has a main idea for each section or chapter of the book. The headings often provide clues as to what the main idea of each section or chapter is about.
• Check for understanding: Ask students what they think the main idea of the 6th chapter might be by looking at the table of contents. Ask students to tell the main idea of the chapter titled "Louis Armstrong." As a group, determine the important words, phrases, and sentences in the chapter. Have students use the last page of the book to write a short summary of the chapter that includes the main idea and most important details. Have several students share their summaries.
• Independent practice: Have students work independently to complete the Main Idea and Details worksheet with the main idea and important details for each chapter listed. Discuss their responses. If students disagree about the main idea of a chapter, have them justify their responses by identifying clues in the text.
• Extend the discussion:

    Instruct students to use the inside cover of their book to write whether or not they would like to listen to some jazz, and explain why or why not.

Grammar, Mechanics, and Usage: Adverbs

• Explain that writers use adverbs to describe verbs. Adverbs tell how, when, where, or how often the action by the verb happens. Tell students that many adverbs end in -ly, but not all. Write the following sentences on the board: Sometimes she sang slowly and you could hear the sadness in her voice. and Ella Fitzgerald often performed at The Savoy. Ask students to identify the verb in the first sentence and then identify the adverb that tells how she sang. Then have students point out the verb in the second sentence and the adverb that tells how frequently. Point out that by using an adverb in each sentence, the writer gives the reader more information and helps him or her form a mental picture of the action.
• Reinforce by directing students to the second paragraph on page 17 and asking them to find the verb and adverb in the first sentence. Ask students if the adverb tells how, when, where, or how often.
• Have the students complete the Adverbs worksheet.

Vocabulary: Content Vocabulary

• Tell students that many of the words in the book are used to tell about jazz and music. Provide opportunities for students to talk about difficult words such as improvised and innovators. Provide opportunities for students to say the new vocabulary words, talk about their meanings, and use the words in sentences.
• Click here for a Content Vocabulary worksheet.

Independent Reading

• Allow the students to read their books independently or with a partner. Partners can take turns reading parts of the book.

Home Connection

• Give the students their books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends.

Writing Connection

• Provide additional resources for students to research one of the jazz musicians in the book or one of their choosing. Have the students prepare a summary of the person's life and present it to the class. Post students' reports on a bulletin board titled, "We're in the Swing."

Music Connection

• Create a listening center for students to sample a variety of jazz music. Have students select a favorite artist and write a paragraph explaining what he or she likes about the music. Encourage students to use adverbs in their writing.

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• identify main idea and supporting details.
• identify and use adverbs.
• recognize and use content vocabulary.

Comprehension Checks

• Retelling Rubric