Lab Activity 16: Questions for Locating Supporting Details

Chapter 4: Supporting Details
Lab Activity 16: Questions for Locating Supporting Details

Objective
To find the supporting details by questioning the main idea of a paragraph.

Step 2: Read the following paragraph, then answer the questions.

For the first time in our country's history, women work and lead alongside men in major business enterprises. They are directors and administrators in school districts, hospitals, and major community agencies. They lead worship services in churches and synagogues. They are elected to political office at the local, state, and national levels. They play in symphony orchestras and exhibit their art in major museums. They direct laboratories and conduct major research projects. They are included in the ranks of physicians and attorneys. They staff major radio and television networks, edit important magazines and newspapers, and report and make news throughout the world. They continue to be the mainstays of the traditional helping professions in schools, hospitals, and mental health clinics; and a small percentage of them elect to be full-time homemakers to raise their own children the way they were raised.

— Adapted from Rimm, See Jane Win, 1999, pp. 1–2

5. What is the main idea of the paragraph?

a. Women are directors and administrators in school districts, hospitals, and major community agencies.

b. A small percentage of them elect to be full-time homemakers to raise their children the way they were raised.

c. For the first time in our country's history, women work and lead alongside men in major business enterprises.

d. They play in symphony orchestras and exhibit their art in major museums.

6. Which question would be most helpful in trying to find the supporting details?

a. Why is this the first time in our country's history that women work and lead alongside men in major business enterprises?

b. What major business enterprises do women as well as men work in and lead?

c. How does our country compare to other countries in terms of where women work?

7–14. Fill in the supporting details in the outline. Be careful to use the same wording and spelling as the paragraph does, or your answer may be counted as incorrect.

Main idea: For the first time in our country's history, women work and lead alongside men in major business enterprises.

7. They are in school districts, hospitals, and major community agencies.

8. They in churches and synagogues.

9. They at the local, state, and national levels.

10. They and exhibit their art in major museums.

11. They and conduct major research projects.

12. They are included in the ranks of .

13. They staff major radio and television networks, , and report and make news throughout the world.

14. They continue to be the in schools, hospitals, and mental health clinics.