Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 53(8)

May 2010
doi:10.1598/JA AL.53.8.4
2010 International Reading Association
(pp. 656 666)

A Lesson Cycle for Teaching Expository

Reading and Writing

This lesson cycle for Jos Montelongo | Roberta J. Herter | Robert Ansaldo | Naomi Hatter

expository texts uses direct

In the Indus Valley, the underground water had become unusually mixed with
instruction for teaching salt. It made growing crops very difficult for farmers. With very little food, the
inhabatants of the Indus Valley faced famine and extreme starvation. They f led
students to recognize cue the valley to escape the fate of no food.

words for text structures.

H ow can middle school teachers get students to summarize their reading
of expository texts, as this student has? Beginning with that end in mind, we
thought about the tenuous transition students are required to make into ever
more challenging textbooks. In response, we devised a lesson cycle of exposi-
tion that provides students with strategic practice reading and writing exposi-
tory texts. Teaching middle school students to develop reading and writing
strategies for expository texts is difficult, even for experienced teachers. How
do we teach students to find main ideas or note important supporting details?
How do we teach students to organize expository paragraphs logically?
In this article, we present a lesson cycle of activities that teaches students
reading and writing skills for expository texts. The lesson cycle for expository
texts uses direct instruction for teaching students to recognize cue words for
text structures. The action research study reports with quantitative data that
students improved expository text comprehension after five weeks of practice
with the lessons. The lesson cycle promotes teaching reading and writing of
expository texts as complementary processes that are manageable and repli-
cable in middle school content area classrooms.
Action research responds to the plaintive voices of students singing their
familiar anthem: Righting a paragraph for me is hard couse I dont know
what to right. Also I dont know what you have to talk about. A sixth grad-
er further informed our thinking when she wrote, Writing paragraphs is a
problem for me because after a few sentences I cant write in a paragraph. I
have a problem reading textbooks, another student told us. They tend to get
boring and I get lost in the text. I also drift off in though and get in trouble
656
for daydreaming. These students recognized the challenges posed by reading
and writing expository text. The lesson cycle presented here is one response
to their calls for help.
Context
This action research project brought together two
newly credentialed English teachers and two teacher
educators to develop and pilot expository text lesson
cycles. Following the completion of their credential-
ing program, the new teachers eased into their careers
by taking a five-week summer school teaching posi-
tions working with students required to attend half-
day sessions. The challenge for the new teachers was
to develop a responsive curriculum in language arts
and study skills. We came together and planned the
lesson cycle lessons using state-adopted middle school
textbooks from science and social studies. For the first
two weeks, we met nightly to plan and assess the next
days lessons. Then we met weekly to review student
work and assess student progress and overall program
effectiveness.
The district offering summer school required its
middle school students to attend if they had failed
three or more courses during the school year. The
courses taught by the new teachers included a study
skills course and an English class. We report here the
results of the action research study along with the
content of the lesson cycles that we designed and that
was taught by the teachers.
Recognizing Main Ideas
Many content area teachers rely solely on their text-
books to provide students with practice in locating
main ideas, an over-reliance that has inherent prob-
lems. First, textbooks are often sporadic in provid-
ing opportunities for students to practice finding the
main idea, resulting in only a few exercises through-
out an entire school year. Second, textbooks present
exercises on main ideas, text structures, and signal
words as isolated skills. Given the inadequacy of text-
book activities, teachers often resort in desperation to
advising students to always choose the first sentence
of a paragraph as the main idea. This advice is given
without the instruction needed to understand what
main ideas are and how they are related to reading
comprehension skills, text structures, and writing.
Students must conceptualize the relationships be-
tween main ideas and the various types of supporting
details, such as examples, facts, and opinions. To help
students do this, teachers can use authentic activities
that treat topics, main ideas, and supporting details as
components of paragraphs and that require students to
work with paragraphs in their entirety, not with in-
dividual sentences only. However, this is typically not
the case with current textbooks, which use exercises
that focus on locating the main idea with individual
sentences rather than considering the logical relation-
ships among the supporting details and the main idea.
Textbooks often ignore the relationship between
main ideas and their supporting details. In a fact-or-
opinion exercise, for example, students may be pre-
sented with sentences such as, Baseball is an exciting
sport. From sentences such as this, the student must
decide whether the sentence states a fact or an opin-
ion. Since they are only asked to consider an indi-
vidual sentence in these exercises, students are not
learning to make the connection between facts and
opinions and the main idea when reading an exposi-
tory paragraph.
More important, the use of isolated sentences fails
to promote the understanding that facts and opinions
or causes and effects are intended to prove or explain
the main ideas. In summary, the use of individual
sentences to teach main ideas and supporting details
decontextualizes important skills and fails to teach
students the relationships among topics, main ideas,
and supporting details.
A L e s s o n C y c l e f o r Te a c h i n g E x p o s i t o r y R e a d i n g a n d W r i t i n g
Text Structures and Learning
There is structure to the information that is contained
within the paragraphs that compose the textbooks
in content area classrooms. There are different types
of expository structures or patterns of organization,
which ref lect the relationship between the main idea
of the paragraph and the supporting details used to
prove or explain it. Among the different types of
paragraph structures are generalization, sequence,
compare and contrast, cause and effect, and problem
and solution (Piccolo, 1987). Examples of these text
structures are included in Table 1.
Text structures provide students with frame-
works for understanding the content area texts. The
recognition of an organizational pattern facilitates the 657
learning of textbook information because it enables
the reader to see the logical relationships advanced
 Table 1 Types of Text Structures and Corresponding Examples
Type Example
Generalization Franklin Roosevelts early life was a privileged one. His father, James Roosevelt, was a wealthy of-
ficial of a railway. His mother, Sara, came from a rich family and was younger than her husband. He
accompanied his parents on their yearly trips to Europe. He was educated by private tutors until the
age of 14. He learned to speak and write both German and French fluently as a youngster.
Sequence A pea plant goes through several stages in its life cycle. It starts out as a tiny plant, called an embryo,
inside a seed. When the seed sprouts, the embryo grows into a seedling that does not look like a ma-
ture plant. The seedling grows into a mature plant with flowers. Each flower produces seeds inside a
pod.
Compare and Crocodiles and alligators are similar in many ways, but different in others. Both have tough hides,
contrast which are wanted by manufacturers of leather. They both prey upon fish and small mammals that
they swallow whole. The crocodile seems the more menacing of the two since it shows more teeth
when its mouth is closed. Still, nobody would want to encounter either one of these creatures alone.
Cause and effect The Norths victory over the South in the U.S. Civil War resulted in many hardships for the losers.
Industry and the Southern way of life were casualties of the war. The fierce hatred between the
North and South peoples continued for generations after the war. The South lost its voice in the so-
cial, political, and cultural affairs of the country. Not all of the results of the war were negative since
slavery was abolished.
Problem and The underground water that sustained the Indus Valley had become salty. This made it difficult for
solution the farmers to grow essential crops. Without food, the inhabitants of the valley faced certain starva-
tion. In order to escape this fate, they deserted their city and moved elsewhere. In time, they may
have been assimilated or accepted into the population of other cultures.

by the author (Ogle & Blachowicz, 2002). Like chess
masters who use structures to remember the positions
of each piece on the chessboard, readers employ text
structures to help them learn and recall what they
read (Taylor & Samuels, 1983).
May 2010
when they recognize compare-and-contrast para-
graphs. For students to develop this ability, however,
they need repeated practice with the various types of
expository text structures.
One way to teach students to recognize the dif-

Text structures have signal words that are asso- ferent text structures is to provide them with prac-
ciated with them (Neufeld, 2005), which helps stu- tice deconstructing and reconstructing paragraphs
dents to identify the various structures. Sequence with graphic organizers, which are visual representa-
53(8)

paragraphs often contain the signal words first, next, tions of text structures that capture the relationships
and finally to indicate the order of events. The words between main ideas and supporting details. Graphic
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

because, since, consequently, and the phrase as a result, sig-
nal cause-and-effect paragraphs. A set of signal words
and their associated expository structures is presented
in Table 2.
Successful readers are aware of the different
types of paragraph structures and their correspond-
ing signal words. They learn to use their recognition
of text structures to find the main ideas and guide
their understanding of the text. At the more abstract
level, successful readers use the text structures to or-
658
ganize and construct a mental representation of what
they read (Spivey & King, 1989). Students learn and
remember how two subjects are alike and different
organizers can also help teach students to conceptual-
ize the relationships among the supporting details and
the paragraphs overarching main idea. Once students
have learned the expository text structures, they can
use them to generate their own paragraphs. Early on,
students require an outline of the structure to gener-
ate a paragraph. The graphic organizers can be used to
scaffold their writing as well.
In summary, students must know the interre-
lationships among the topics, main ideas, and sup-
porting details of paragraphs if they are going to
comprehend and remember the important points
the author is making. Students must be aware of the
 Table 2 Signal Words and Phrases Correlated With the Different Expository Structures
Generalization Sequence Compare and contrast Cause and effect Problem and solution
for example first like because problem
to illustrate then similarly since answer
for instance next on the other hand consequently solution
to begin with after however thus trouble

different types of text structures and signal words to
guide their comprehension. Furthermore, students
must be able to generate mental representations of
the different structures to learn, remember, and write
about the information from text. Students require
extensive practice with paragraph exercises, not indi-
vidual sentences, as the unit of analysis.
Next, we present a lesson cycle that teaches stu-
dents the interrelationships among topics, main ideas,
and supporting details. The lesson cycle familiarizes
students with the different types of expository struc-
tures, their graphic representations, and the signal
words correlated with those structures. It is intended
to teach students to read and summarize expository
text.
The Lesson Cycle
sentence completion activity, and (4) rewriting text.
The four-part cycle is presented in Figure 1.
Vocabulary Words
The first part of the cycle introduces the vocabulary
words essential for the understanding and comple-
tion of the other activities. In contrast with the typi-
cal language arts lesson where students are given a
list of words to look up, in this lesson cycle, we use
words-in-context exercises. Research shows that stu-
dents can develop the important ability of guessing
at the meanings of unknown words through context
clues exercises (Fukkink & de Glopper, 1998). Next,
students use their dictionaries to check their guesses
and verify meanings of the vocabulary words. To as-
sess learning of the words, students generate their own
sentences using their new vocabulary.

The lesson cycle begins by introducing essential vo-
cabulary and ends with students composing exposi-
tory paragraphs. The lesson cycle consists of four parts:
(1) vocabulary words, (2) text structures, (3) modified
A L e s s o n C y c l e f o r Te a c h i n g E x p o s i t o r y R e a d i n g a n d W r i t i n g
Text Structures
The second part of the cycle is devoted to the intro-
duction of the five different types of paragraph text

Figure 1 The Four-Part Lesson Cycle

Vocabulary Words Text Structures Modified Sentence Rewriting Text

Completion
Using-the-context Generalization Activity Rewrite embedded
exercises paragraph in the
Sequence Find embedded students own words
Dictionary usage paragraph
Compare and Write original
Generate sentences contrast Locate main idea compositions

Cause and effect Arrange sentences

in order on graphic
Problem and solution organizers 659
 structuresgeneralization, sequences, compare and
contrast, cause and effect, and problem and solution
one structure at a time. A teacher presents students
with a paragraph corresponding to one of the text
structures and models methods for separating the
main ideas of paragraphs from the supporting details.
Along with the paragraphs, the teacher presents sig-
nal words that correspond to each text structure. For
example, because signals a detail in a cause-and-effect
paragraph; next signals a detail in a sequence para-
graph; similarly indicates a detail in a compare-and-
contrast paragraph. Students are taught to recognize
that the signal words point to details rather than the
main idea.
Modified Sentence Completion Activity
Once the students are introduced to the vocabulary
words and to a particular text structure and its signal
words, the next stage in the lesson cycle combines the
learning of vocabulary with the introduction of the
text structure through a sentence completion exercise
(fill-in-the-blanks activity). Unlike the sentence com-
pletion tasks found in textbooks and workbooks that
are written at the sentence level of analysis, a quali-
tatively different sentence completion activity is pre-
sented. This modified sentence completion task gives
students practice with vocabulary words, locating
May 2010
main ideas, and using graphic organizers associated
with the various expository structures (Montelongo &
Hernndez, 2007).
In this sentence completion task, students are
53(8)
presented with a fill-in-the-blanks worksheet that
includes 1012 sentences. Half of the sentences are
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
related to each other and form an expository para-
graph. The remaining sentences serve as foils. To do
the activity successfully, students complete the sen-
tences with a correct vocabulary word and find the
related sentences that create the embedded paragraph.
First, the students find the related sentences, then they
identify the main idea sentence from among them.
Next, students arrange the related sentences in a logi-
cal order and write (or paste) them onto a graphic or-
ganizer. An example of a sentence completion task is
660
presented in Figure 2.
Teachers can help their students find the related
sentences by giving them hints about the topics of the
hidden paragraphs or about the number of sentences
that must be found. Providing students with hints
can diminish the challenges inherent in the activities.
Teachers can scaffold the task with varying degrees
of support after the first few exposures to the modi-
fied sentence completion task, thus leading students to
success in independent work.
In the modified sentence completion task, stu-
dents develop their skills for locating the main ideas in
text. The related sentences that complete the embed-
ded paragraph contain one main idea and several sup-
porting details, often cued by signal words. Students
must review all of the sentences before they can deter-
mine which one is the main idea. In contrast with the
always choose the first sentence advice that teachers
give their students before a high-stakes test, students
must know what a main idea is and how to identify it
to recognize main ideas from details.
Rewriting Text
The final step in the lesson cycle is generative. Students
take the paragraph and summarize its content in their
own words, as was shown in the paragraph on the
Indus Valley at the beginning of the article and in the
examples in this section. Students may simply replace
some of the authors words with synonyms and ant-
onyms of their own, or they may add their own sup-
porting details to expand on the original text.
In the following rewrite, the student has made
the paragraph more colloquial:
In the Indus Valley there was an underground water
system that went salty. This made it close to impossible
for farmers to grow necessary crops. With no crops the
people of Indus Valley face death. So they left. Over
time they may have joined other cultures.
The word difficult became close to impossible.
The entire sentence, In order to escape this fate, they
deserted their city and moved elsewhere, became,
So they left. The word essential became nec-
essary. In this paragraph, the writer clearly demon-
strates an understanding of the text.
In another example, the writer takes liberties
with the abstracted paragraph by adding some of her
own details while maintaining an understanding of
the paragraph:
Figure 2 An Example Sentence Completion Activity

Part 1
Directions: Complete the sentences with a vocabulary word.
ally aristocrats assimilated dictator essential
famines fate inhabitants plagues sustained

1. Without food, the _______________ of the valley faced certain starvation.

2. Italy was an _______________ of Japan and Germany during World War ll.

3. This made it difficult for the farmers to grow _______________ crops.

4. Epidemics of _______________ in humans are usually caused by fleas and rats.

5. In time, they may have been _______________ or accepted into the population of other cultures.

6. In order to escape this _______________, they deserted their city and moved elsewhere.

7. The _______________ lived a life of leisure while the poor people suffered.

8. _______________ are usually brought on by crop failures and pestilence.

9. The underground water that _______________ the Indus Valley had become salty.

10. Porfirio Daz was a _______________ of Mexico who ruled for over thirty years.

Part 2
Directions: Find the related sentences and paste them onto the graphic organizer.

Main Idea Sentence

Detail 1

A L e s s o n C y c l e f o r Te a c h i n g E x p o s i t o r y R e a d i n g a n d W r i t i n g
Detail 2

Detail 3

Detail 4

Part 3
Directions: Write a paragraph in your own words using the graphic organizer to help you. Add synonyms, antonyms, and
experiences to make this paragraph your own.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
661
 Indus Valley underground water became salty. The
scary farmers with face paint got irritated because
their crops couldnt grow right. Maybe 2 out of 10
crops would give them their essential needs. Many
people died a horrible death. Thanks to them the in-
habitants figured that they needed to live somewhere
else. Maybe they could of been accepted by different
cultures. We will never know.
In the next example, the writer also takes owner-
ship of the paragraph by adding his own words while
also preserving the meaning of the text. In addition,
note the use of the signal word problem:
Indus Valleys water has become very polluted with
salty like substances. This problem made it hard for
farmers to grow there crops needed for survival. With
no food, the valley livers would have nothing to eat.
This is usually how disasters start. To keep away from
this problem, they left the valley.
In their summary writing samples, students dem-
onstrate their comprehension of the text by sum-
marizing the content in their own words. Some add
details from their own experiences or background
knowledge while others delete certain supporting de-
tails. These examples of summary writing provide the
teachers with evidence that students comprehended
the text, thus validating their learning of content.
May 2010
By adding their own words and supporting details,
the students not only demonstrated an understanding
of the content material, through their writing they
53(8)
ref lect a level of engagement not accessible through
typical main idea exercises.
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
A Study of the Lesson Cycle
on the Learning of Main Ideas
We took this opportunity to work with a team on
investigating the effectiveness of the lesson cycle in
a classroom setting. The study followed the prog-
ress of sixth- and seventh-grade students during the
five weeks of summer school in a California middle
school. The junior authors of this manuscript served
as the English and study skills teachers for the pro-
662
gram. The participants were required to attend classes
to be promoted.
Methodology
The action research was coordinated between the
teacher educators and the classroom teachers. As
shown in Table 3, which summarizes the sequence
of teaching events, the study skills teacher introduced
new vocabulary on the first day of the lesson cycle.
During this class time, students completed the context-
clues exercises, getting more precise definitions of
the vocabulary words from a dictionary and creat-
ing sentences using these words. On the second day,
the study skills teacher introduced a particular type
of text structure and the signal words that correlated
with that structure. As part of this lesson, the study
skills teacher presented students with paragraphs that
exemplified a particular structure and its signal words.
The task for the students was to find the main ideas
of the paragraphs and to note the usage of the signal
words. On the third day, the study skills teacher be-
gan a new cycle by introducing new vocabulary.
The students were introduced to the differ-
ent types of expository structures one structure at a
time. The instructor modeled the deconstruction of
a paragraph into its component parts: main idea, sup-
porting details, and signal words. The five exposi-
tory structures were taught in the following order:
generalization, sequence, compare and contrast, cause
and effect, and problem and solution. There were two
complete cycles for each of these structures during the
five-week summer schedule.
The English teacher who followed the study skills
teacher on the daily schedule worked with the stu-
dents on completing the modified sentence comple-
tion task on the first day of each cycle. The English
instructor reviewed vocabulary, assisted the students
in completing the modified sentence completion task,
and taught the students to locate main ideas and logi-
cally order sentences. Finally, the English teacher in-
troduced graphic organizers and supervised students
rewriting their paragraphs. On the second day, the
English teacher directed students to write original
compositions that corresponded to the expository
structure. For instance, after having learned about the
compare-and-contrast structure, students wrote about
the differences between summer school and regular
school. On the third day, the English teacher began
Table 3 Weekly Experimental Schedule
Week Teacher Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
1 Study Test 1 Using context Text structures Using context Text structures
skills clues generalization clues sequence
teacher Dictionary Signal words Dictionary Signal words
Matching Matching
English Definition of main Nonexperimental Sentence comple- Write generaliza- Sentence comple-
teacher idea, topic, sup- activities tion activity tion paragraph tion activity
porting details Order the ab- Order the ab-
stracted general- stracted sequence
ization paragraph paragraph
Rewrite paragraph Rewrite paragraph
in own words in own words
2 Study Using context Text structures Using context Text structures Using Context
skills clues compare and clues cause and effect Clues; Dictionary;
teacher Dictionary contrast Dictionary Signal words Matching;
Matching Signal words Matching
English Write sequence Sentence comple- Write compare- Sentence comple- Write cause-and-
teacher paragraph tion activity and-contrast tion activity effect paragraph
Order the ab- paragraph Order the
stracted compare- abstracted
and-contrast cause-and-effect
paragraph paragraph
Rewrite paragraph Rewrite paragraph
in own words in own words
3 Study Text structures Using context Review signal Text Structures Using context
skills problem and clues words generalization clues
teacher solution Dictionary Review defini- Dictionary
Signal words Matching tions of main idea, Matching
topic, and sup-
porting details
Using context
clues

A L e s s o n C y c l e f o r Te a c h i n g E x p o s i t o r y R e a d i n g a n d W r i t i n g
Dictionary
Matching
English Sentence comple- Write problem- Test 2 Sentence comple- Write generaliza-
teacher tion activity and-solution tion activity tion paragraph
Order the ab- paragraph Order the ab-
stracted problem- stracted general-
and-solution ization paragraph
paragraph Rewrite paragraph
Rewrite paragraph in own words
in own words
4 Study Text structures Using context Text structures Using context Text structures
skills sequence clues compare and clues cause and effect
teacher Dictionary contrast Dictionary
Matching Matching
English Sentence comple- Write sequence Sentence comple- Write compare- Sentence comple-
teacher tion activity paragraph tion activity and-contrast tion activity
Order the ab- Order the ab- paragraph Order the
stracted sequence stracted compare- abstracted
paragraph and-contrast cause-and-effect
paragraph paragraph 663
Rewrite paragraph
in own words Rewrite paragraph Rewrite paragraph
in own words in own words
(continued)
 Table 3 Weekly Experimental Schedule (Continued)

Week Teacher Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

5 Study Using context Text structures Review signal Test 3
skills clues problem and words
teacher Dictionary solution Review defini-
Matching tions of main idea,
topic, supporting
details
English Write cause-and- Sentence comple- Write problem-
teacher effect paragraph tion activity and-solution
Order the ab- paragraph
stracted problem-
and-solution
paragraph
Rewrite paragraph
in own words

the cycle with new vocabulary using the sentence
completion task.
Participants
Sixty-one students participated in the study, 30 sixth
graders and 31 seventh graders. With respect to gen-
der, there were 20 male sixth graders and 10 females.
Similarly, there were 20 male seventh graders and
11 females. Twenty-one of the sixth-grade partici-
pants were of Latino descent and 9 were white, non-
Latinos. Similarly, there were 19 Latino students and
May 2010
student participant was tested on each test only once
for the three different test sessions. The order of pre-
sentation of the tests was randomized over subjects.
The student participants were given 30 minutes to
complete a test.
Results
The students improved in their ability to identify
the main ideas of paragraphs. The mean percentage
of main ideas selected correctly on the first test was

59.32% and 77.86% on the final test. This represented

12 white non-Latinos in the seventh-grade class. an increase of over 30% after the five-week lesson cy-
cle intervention. Excluding the four participants who
Main Idea Pretest and Posttests did equally well on both the first and last test, 47 of the
53(8)

The students were tested three times for the skill of 57 participants (p<.0001, sign test) showed improve-
locating the main idea at the beginning, middle, and ment on the final test relative to their performance
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

the end of the five-week period. The tests consisted
of booklets each containing 12 paragraphs taken from
commercially prepared reading and language arts
workbooks for grade levels five through eight (e.g.,
Flash Kids Editors, 2004a, 2004b) and included the
different types of expository text structures. Half of
the main ideas were used as the first sentence in the
paragraph, and half of the main ideas were located in
the last sentence of the paragraph. Students were re-
quired to read the paragraph, abstract the main idea,
664
and write it out in the space provided.
Three different tests were created. These tests
were used on the three different test dates. Every
on the initial test. The results were generalizable to
both the sixth- and seventh-grade students. For the
sixth-grade students, 25 of the 29 (p<.001, sign test)
performed better on the final test than on the ini-
tial test. The seventh-grade students also improved in
their ability to identify main ideas despite starting at
a fairly high level. Excluding the 3 participants who
did equally well on both the first and last test 22 of
the 28 students (p<.005, sign test) performed better
on the final test than on the initial test. The results are
presented in Tables 46.
There were statistically significant increases in
performance regardless of the location of the main
 Table 4 Mean Percentage of Main Ideas Identified
Grade level Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 F p
Overall 59.32% 67.29% 77.86% 18.92 p<.0001
Sixth graders 51.13% 65.21% 74.58% 13.61 p<.0001
Seventh graders 67.24% 69.32% 81.04% 7.12 p<.005

Table 5 Mean Percentage of Main Ideas Identified When Occurring in First Sentence
Grade level Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 F p
Overall 74.64% 82.56 89.67% 12.48 p<.0001
Sixth graders 64.94% 79.33% 86.56% 10.88 p<.0005
Seventh graders 84.33% 85.78% 92.78% 4.08 p<.05

Table 6 Mean Percentage of Main Ideas Identified When Occurring in Last Sentence
Grade level Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 F p
Overall 43.12% 52.03% 62.00% 11.58 p<.0001
Sixth graders 37.41% 47.47% 56.88% 3.79 p<.05
Seventh graders 48.82% 56.59% 67.12% 6.99 p<.005

idea in a paragraph. Students correctly identified In many schools, students are taught to look

the main idea 74.64% of the times on the pretest and
89.67% of the time on the posttest. This is a 20.1%
increase in the ability to find main idea when it oc-
curred in the first sentence of a paragraph.
The sixth graders exhibited a 33.3% increase
from the pretest to their final test in being able to
find the main idea when it was the first sentence of
the paragraph. Seventeen out of the 19 sixth-grade
students (p<.001, sign test) showed superior perfor-
mance on the final test than on the pretest. Eleven
students performed equally well on the pre- and post-
tests. Although their performance levels were ini-
tially high, 12 out of the 18 seventh-grade students
(p>.05, sign test) showed improvement in locating
the main idea when it occurred as the first sentence
in the paragraph. This represents a 10% increase from
the pretest to their final test. Thirteen students per-
formed equally well on the pre- and posttests.
A L e s s o n C y c l e f o r Te a c h i n g E x p o s i t o r y R e a d i n g a n d W r i t i n g
for main ideas in the initial sentences of paragraphs.
Therefore, a more stringent assessment occurs when
main ideas are located in other than the first sentence.
The main idea tests in this study included main idea
sentences occurring as either the first or final sen-
tences. The percentage of main ideas identified when
they occurred as the last sentences in the paragraph
increased from 43.12% to 62% from the pretest to the
final test. The ability to locate the main idea when
it occurred in the final sentence improved by 43.9%.
The sixth graders exhibited a 52% increase from
the pretest to their final test in locating the main
idea when it was the last sentence of the paragraph.
Twenty-three out of 27 sixth graders (p < .001,
sign test) improved from the pretest to the final test.
Nineteen out of 25 seventh graders (p < .001, sign
665
test) demonstrated better performance on the final
test when the main idea occurred as the last sentence.
 This represents a 37.5% increase in performance. Five
students showed no improvement.
Although there was substantial improvement in
the identification of main ideas occurring as the last
sentences in paragraphs, most students correctly iden-
tified more main ideas when they were located in the
first sentence of the paragraph. Twenty-four out of 27
sixth-grade participants (p<.0001) correctly identi-
fied more first sentence main ideas than last sentence
main ideas. Three students showed no improvement.
Similarly, 22 out of 23 (p<.0001) seventh-grade par-
ticipants correctly identified more first sentence main
ideas than last sentence main ideas. There were 8 stu-
dents who performed equally well on both.
Participants reduced the tendency to incorrectly
choose the first sentence as the main idea in a para-
graph. On the pretest, sixth-grade students incor-
rectly selected the first sentence as the main idea 93
times. On the final test, the same students incor-
rectly selected the first sentence as the main idea
only 62 times. This represents a 33.3% improvement
of performance. The seventh-grade participants also
exhibited similar improvement: On their pretest,
seventh graders incorrectly chose the first sentence
80 times. On the final test, errors were reduced to
46. This represents a 42.5% improvement of perfor-
mance. In summary, students reduced their tendency
to automatically select the first sentence as the main
May 2010
idea.
Lesson Cycle Effective
53(8)
for Locating Main Ideas
These results suggest that the lesson cycle introduced
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
here was effective. Middle school summer school stu-
dents significantly improved their abilities to locate
main ideas when challenged with exercises and ac-
tivities that use paragraphs as basic units of analyses.
The lesson cycle was effective because it gave the stu-
dents practice with text structures, signal words, and
graphic organizers. The lesson cycle also permitted
students to demonstrate their understanding of con-
tent through their rewriting of the text material.
666
More investigations with different student sam-
ples, materials, and greater long-term studies into the
efficacy of the lesson cycle are needed. The results of
this action research are limited to placements of main
ideas as first or last sentences in paragraphs. Future
studies could generalize the present findings to other
placements of main ideas. Although the present study
has focused on students abilities to locate main ideas,
further studies may delve into the effectiveness of the
lesson cycle on the quality of expository writing or its
effects on content area comprehension.
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Montelongo teaches at California Polytechnic State
University, San Luis Obispo, USA; e-mail jmontelo@
calpoly.edu. Herter also teaches at California Polytechnic
State University; e-mail rherter@calpoly.edu. Ansaldo is
a graduate of the Masters degree program at California
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the Masters degree program in Education at California
Polytechnic State University.
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