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High-Five Summary

Purpose

Students prove they understand a concept by creating a detailed summary.

Materials

  • High-Five Summary handout (projected)
  • High-Five Summary – Elementary template (English/Spanish)
  • High-Five Summary – Secondary template (English/Spanish)
  • Notebook paper

Instructions

  1. Students draw their hand on a sheet of paper.
  2. Students record the following ideas in their “high-five” hand:
    • Thumb: big idea of the lesson/unit
    • Pointer: 3 important words
    • Middle: visuals or text titles
    • Ring: something important
    • Pinkie: something confusing
    • Palm: one-sentence summary
  3. Using a movement and discourse strategy such as Musical Mix-Freeze-Group, students get a partner and share their summaries, revising their original responses as appropriate.
  4. Observe students’ thinking and clarify/verify as appropriate.

Classroom Management

  • Model the strategy using a think-aloud.
  • Project the template and ask students to complete the activity on notebook paper.

Differentiation

  • Promote access by thinking through the task with a supportive peer/adult.
  • Provide response support by providing a word/idea bank and dictating responses to a scribe.
  • Provide response support by allowing students to develop answers using a speech-to-text or word prediction support with a digital version of the High-Five Summary template.

Think It Up!

  • Have students think more deeply about the concept by responding to a Think It Up prompt as an exit ticket or journal entry:
    • Sequence your summary into steps. What comes first, second, third, etc.?
    • Make an inference about how this concept might be assessed.
  • Encourage students to use lead4ward’s Thinking Stems (English/Spanish) to frame their responses, if needed.