IN THE CLASSROOM:Outlines help with ideas

The space above the blackboard in Marine Avagyan’s classroom at Glenoaks Elementary School is covered with illustrations designed to help students get organized.

Avagyan’s students work with graphic organizers, such as circle maps or bubble maps, to put their ideas on paper. She is also teaching them to use outlines.

Students follow step-by-step instructions on how to outline what they read from their texts.

Sevana Henry wrote Roman numerals and letters on her paper after she opened her book to the story “Monkeys with a Mission.” The 11-year-old wrote the title of the story on her outline and then wrote the words “main idea” next to Roman numeral one.

“The story is about people who have disabilities and they have monkeys help them,” Sevana said.

Students worked on constructing outlines to help them with reading comprehension.

“The challenge is to learn how to use an outline,” Avagyan said. “It’s a high level of thinking, to learn the main ideas from the reading and put it together in an outline.”

Students also have to learn how to identify terms such as heading, sub-heading and sub-topic.

“It’s about introducing them to the language,” she said. “It’s a language of discipline, knowing terminology is important.”

For 11-year-old Alfred Gregorian an outline is a tool for him to collect his thoughts before he starts writing an essay.

“It’s important to use it because you can break down ideas,” Alfred said. “It’s pretty much a rough draft for essays.”

The lesson on outlines is designed to prepare students to write reports, Avagyan said.

As students readied their papers to write outlines, 10-year-old Arcen Vaganyan used a highlighter to mark the main ideas of an article he read about global warming.

“It helps me understand what I’m reading and it helps me get organized,” he said of the outlining process.

It was the first time that 10-year-old Livia Martorana was using an outline.

“I usually use bubble maps,” Livia said. “Not many outlines.”

Districtwide graphic organizers and outlines help students visualize what they read so they can organize their thoughts when they are writing essays or reports, Avagyan said.

KIDS TALK BACK

The Glendale News-Press visited Glenoaks Elementary School and asked students: “How does an outline help you better understand what you are reading?”

“It gives you more imagination. It helps you summarize the story more easier.”

ARTIN MINASSI, 11

Glendale

“When you summarize the main ideas in an outline, you get a picture in your head. It helps me see how the story would be like.”

GUIANINA LIM, 10

Glendale

“It helps me get a picture in my head. I get a summary from the outline and it helps me understand what I read.”

MATTHEW AFIFI, 11

Glendale

“It helps me understand the main idea of a certain topic. Subtopics in an outline suggest events that are happening.”

ALYSSA DERMENJIAN, 11

Glendale

“It outlines the things in the story you don’t really know. An outline shows you the main ideas.”

JAMIL SIDI, 10

Glendale