1. Marley Maharrey Tupelo Middle School
Summaries
Marley Maharrey
Tupelo Middle School

2. Summarizing
When we summarize, we take larger selections of text and reduce them to their bare essentials.
Bare essentials: the gist, the key, the main points worth remembering.

3. What We Need to Do to Summarize
Pull out main ideas
Focus on key details
Use key words and phrases
Break down larger ideas
Write only enough to convey the main idea

4. What We Shouldn't Do Write down everything Write down next to nothing
Write way too much
Don’t write enough
Copy word for word

5. Summary Frames Focus on structure Narrative
Topic-Restriction-Illustration
Definition
Argumentation
Problem/Solution
Conversation
Marzaon, et al: Classroom Instruction that Works, pages 34-35

6. Narrative Frame The story takes place in… The main characters are…
A problem happens when…
The problem is solved when…
The story ends when…

7. Don’t Look Back 1 Sentence Paraphrase One-Word Summaries
Quick Summaries
Don’t Look Back
1 Sentence Paraphrase
One-Word Summaries
Refine and Reduce
Jones, Lawwill, Wormeli

8. Refine and Reduce (Cutting it down)
Write successively shorter summaries, constantly refining and reducing
Begin with half a page, then two paragraphs, then one paragraph, then two or three sentences, then a single sentence

9. Journalists’ Questions and the GIST (main idea)
Who
What
When
Where
Why
How
20-Word Summary
Gardner, Jones, Gray

10. We are now going to summarize the short story/novel we have studied

11. Remember these parts of a story and performance
CHARACTER – the personality or role played by an actor
CONFLICT – opposition between characters
DIALOGUE – the word choices used by the author and the enunciation, accent or diction of the actor
PLOT – the story, what happens or the sequence of events
SETTING – the surroundings or environment in a story
THEME – what the play means or the main idea within the play

12. Exit Card Summaries
What did I learn today?