Recently, 4th-grade students in Destiny Witman’s class dove into one of the most famous historical topics, the sinking of the Titanic. The lesson was two-fold, teaching the students how to identify the main idea and theme of different texts, as well as exploring the history of the Titanic.  

Witman introduced the lesson by sharing an article on the Titanic, but with a creative twist. She broke the article into paragraphs and gave each student a section to read. Then, the students were asked to summarize the paragraph’s main idea by creating an engaging title. 

The students used dry-erase markers to write their titles on their desks and once they finished, they rotated to the next desk to read a new section, repeating the process until each student had read and titled every paragraph. 

“The inspiration for this lesson actually came from working with my co-teacher, Mrs. Marinez, and with Mrs. Jameson, our campus instructional coach,” said Witman. “We knew that our students could identify headings that were already written by the author, but they were having trouble making the connection to the main idea. It was kind of an impromptu idea to break the article down into paragraphs and create our own headings, and the lesson proved to be more than enjoyable for our students.” 

Witman was able to track the students' comprehension of the activity because every table group had a different piece of text.  

“The fun thing about this activity was that each student at a table group had a different paragraph, so there wasn’t a chance to bounce ideas off one another or get ideas from their table partners. I was able to see what each student knew and what they were able to come up with on their own,” said Witman.  

Witman credits the success of the lesson to her co-worker and campus instructional coach. 

“Text features are a very useful tool but are often overlooked when reading informational texts. Mrs. Marinez and I were struggling to find a way to demonstrate the link between the main idea and text features, more specifically, headings,” said Witman. “Originally, I didn’t plan on using desk-writing for this lesson, but when Mrs. Jameson suggested we have the students create their own headings for each paragraph of our article, of course I ran to my Expo marker bucket!” 

The students were fully immersed in the activity, with one even exclaiming, "Why is this learning so much fun?" Through this hands-on and interactive approach, the students not only honed their skills in identifying the main idea but also enjoyed a memorable learning experience. 

“My favorite part of this lesson was letting each table group “compete” with the others to come up with the best heading for the paragraphs in our article at the end of class,” said Witman. “The discussion was meaningful, and everyone wanted to share their input. I think it’s safe to say it was a very successful day of learning! “ 

Great work, 4th grade students!