Lesson: Recognize Significant Details
Objectives (Key concepts, skills and knowledge)

Reads for details

Distinguishes between significant details and interesting facts about a person’s life

Creates a timeline of major events of a person’s life
Evidence of Student Success

Common Core State Standards
Reading 1,5,10
Writing 4, 9, 10
Marks where significant facts appear in a biography

Explains why that event was important

Speaking and Listening 1,2
Writes the dates and description of events on a lifeline
Preparation
1.
2.
3.
Read Lesson.
Make copies of the Roald Dahl (one for every pair of students) and Lifeline handouts (one for each student). (To save time, you might want to cut and bundle the strips from
the Roald Dahl handout for your students ahead of time. If you don't, be sure to have scissors available.) If your students have Internet access, they could use
the ReadWriteThink Timeline Tool. (http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/timeline/)
Choose a section of text from a biography.
15 minutes
1. Sort Facts
Which details are and are not significant about a person’s life? In this activity, students sort a list of facts by deciding which events that happened in the life of the author Roald Dahl
are important. Students work together in pairs to cut out the facts about his life from the handout and sort them into two groups, those important to know him as a writer and those that
aren’t. Afterwards, the class shares what they decided and why.
2. Model How to Use a Lifeline
10 minutes
Model for students how to read for significant details. Using your preselected portion of text, make checkmarks to indicate details you feel are essential to understanding the character
in the biography. Think out loud why you decide to mark or not mark details about the person. Afterwards, show how the details translate onto a lifeline which is a timeline of a
person's life. (See completed example.)
3. Students Use a Lifeline
20 minutes
Have students select sections or chapters of their biographies that describe the most significant events. After some time for independent rereading, divide your students into their
book groups and have each group write at least five points in their subjects' lives that were most significant. Ask students to put a check next to details they feel are essential to
understanding the characters in their books. Finally, have students create lifelines (see below) for that portion of the characters' lives using the significant details that they checked. To
help students distinguish between significant and non-significant details in a biography, discuss with them why the unchecked (non-essential) details were not necessary for creating
the storyline.
This visual representation of events can be done with drawings as well as words. The lifeline is an important graphic aid even for young children (limit the visuals to six boxes).
Ask students to put a star on what they felt was the most important event. In discussion groups, ask the students to defend their choice(s) of the significant event. This lifeline activity
also leads naturally into cause and effect relationships.
4. Discuss
5 minutes
Ask students to put a star on what they felt was the most important event. In discussion groups, ask the students to defend their choice(s) of the significant event. This lifeline activity
also leads naturally into cause and effect relationships.
Extensions

Reflect in Writer’s Notebooks For older or more advanced students, once they have finished the lifeline, have them answer any or all of the following questions in
their Writer’s Notebooks:
o
o
o
o
o
What were this person’s most important accomplishments?
How did these accomplishments affect other people?
What was the author’s purpose for writing about the person?
What is the main theme of the book?
What makes the writer’s voice interesting in this book?

Timelines and Texts: Motivating Students to Read Nonfiction http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=319

Biographies: Creating Timelines of a Life http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=26
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Dash Facts This variation of two-column note taking works well for any informational book. Explain to students that as they read their books, they should jot down
facts in their Writer’s Notebook. Each note should start with a dash and represent an important fact from the text. The notes do not have to be complete sentences. Dash
facts work best if they are lists of phrases. After students finish reading the book, have them go back and reorganize their dash facts in a two-column chart with four or five
major topics. The chart will look like the one shown below for the first four chapters of Amelia Earhart, only the dash facts will not be written in complete sentences.
DASH FACTS: AMELIA EARHART
CHAPTER
HEADINGS
DETAILS
 had a big sister named Muriel
 one day, they made a car by putting roller skates under a big piece of wood
1.
First Airplane
 they rode down a slide made from the extra wood from the top of a woodshed to the ground
 born on July 24, 1898 in Atchison, Kansas
 moved to Des Moines, Iowa
 saw an airplane for the first time at the Iowa State Fair; she wasn’t impressed
2. Halley's
Comet
 saw Halley’s Comet in 1910
 made a wish upon the star, Vega, that she would grow up to do something exciting
 she went to visit Muriel who was studying in Canada
 WWI had began
3. Growing Up
 Amelia saw the wounded soldiers there and decided to become a nurse’s aide
 one day, she watched some stunt flying at an airfield; wanted to learn to fly!
 after graduating from Columbia University, she went to LA where her parents lived.
 at an air meet, her father let her fly with a pilot
4. First Flight
 loved the experience!
 was determined to take lessons to learn
Student Handout on Roald Dahl
Separate the facts about Roald Dahl by cutting on the lines. Afterwards sort the facts into two groups.
Which facts are important events about his life as a writer? Which ones are not significant?
He was born in Liandaff, Wales on September 13, 1916.
His parents were Norwegian.
When he was three, his father and elder sister died. His mother was left to raise six children on her
own.
His mother used to tell him and his sisters tales about trolls and other mythical Norwegian creatures.
He loved adventure stories by Charles Dickens.
He kept a secret diary from the age of eight.
His father enjoyed paintings, gardening, and fine furniture.
Roald Dahl did not like school. At age 9, he attended St. Peter’s boarding school in Weston-Supermare.
He was a great athlete, particularly in heavyweight boxing and squash.
At age 23, war broke out and he signed up with the Royal Air Force in Nairobi.
His first book for children was The Gremlins, a picture book published in 1943.
Dahl wrote about his experience in the British war for the Saturday Evening Post. During the first
fifteen years of his writing career, he wrote stories for the New Yorker, Harpers and Atlantic Monthly.
He won the Edgar Award from the Mystery writers of America three times.
Brian Appleyard in The Independent in 1990 wrote, “Roald Dahl is without question the most
successful children’s writer in the world.”
James and the Giant Peach was published in America in 1961 and the UK in 1967.
His second book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory debuted in the USA in 1964.
He always used a pencil to write. He couldn’t type.
Roald Dahl died on November 23, 1990 at the age of 74 with a rare blood disorder, Myelo-dysplastic
anemia.