1. The Reading Process – Lesson 4
Summary: GIST
“Overtexting?”

2. ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS:
Good readers know and use a variety of different strategies before, during, and after reading.
Good readers adapt and implement different strategies depending upon the type of text.
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:
What are the characteristics of a good summary?
Why is summary a useful skill to learn?
How do readers use summary strategies to synthesize information to form better understandings of the world around us?
What are some summarization strategies?

3. Warm up - Summary
Do you think “summarizing” is a relatively simple & easy task OR a complex & difficult task? On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a “very easy task” and 5 being a “very difficult task,” rank where you think the skill of summarizing should go.
Very easy task Neither difficult nor easy Very difficult task
(a child could do it) (shouldn’t cause undue stress) (requires a lot of effort)

4. Summarizing Vocabulary
Main idea
Summary
Supporting Detail
Graphic Organizer
“Gist”
Text structure

5. Movie trailer
Remember the “preview of coming attractions” movie trailer we watched the other day when we talked about the good reader strategy “Preview”? Today we’re going to look at some “summaries” of that same movie preview.
Look at the next 3 summaries and evaluate their effectiveness.

6. Which summary is most effective? Why?
Movie Preview Summary
Which summary is most effective? Why?

7. Criteria for an effective summary
Contains all important details/information
Contains no irrelevant information
Presents information in a logical order (the same order as original)

8. Summary Summarizing is a critical AFTER READING good reader strategy
Summarizing is a difficult cognitive skill
There are different strategies for summarizing texts including –
GIST
Magnet Words
Can you think of others?

9. Summarizing strategies
What kind of text – literary or nonliterary –is the movie review?
One strategy that works for this kind of text is the GIST strategy
What does the word “gist” mean?

10. GIST
With the GIST strategy, readers divide the text into small, manageable chunks
As readers read the smaller chunks, they
delete unnecessary information
underline (or circle) important words or phrases
After determining what information is important, write a 20 word or less summary for each chunk.

11. GIST – movie preview
Let’s try the GIST strategy with the movie review.
After writing a GIST summary of the [2] chunks for the movie review, repeat the process, deleting less important information and underlining/circling information in the 1st summaries.
Write one final 20 word (or less) GIST summary

12. Using GIST means summarizing increasingly smaller chunks of text
sample GIST organizer
Original Text
(delete unnecessary/
underline necessary)
First GIST reading
(summarize underlined text)
Second GIST reading
Final GIST summary
Text “chunk” (¶ or column, etc.) -
Text “chunk”
Using GIST means summarizing increasingly smaller chunks of text

13. Remember: an effective summary -
Contains all important details/information
Contains no irrelevant information
Presents information in a logical order (the same order as original)
[for this lesson, keep final summary should be less than 20 words long]

14. GIST: “Overtexting?”
Next we’re going to use the GIST strategy with the article “Overtexting?” Because it’s a longer article, we will repeat the process of writing GIST summaries for increasingly smaller chunks of text.
I will model how to write the first round of GIST summaries
Together we will write the second round of GIST summaries as a class and/or with a partner
Then you will write a final GIST summaries.

15. “Overtexting?” GIST organizer
Original Text
(delete unnecessary/
underline necessary)
First GIST reading
(summarize underlined text)
Second GIST reading
Final GIST summary
Section 1 (1st 7 ¶s)
Fake Relationships
Missing Context
A Hard Line
Defending English

16. Exit ticket/homework
Write your final GIST summary for “Overtexting?” via text-message (remember, your final summary statement must be 20 words or less). You may send your text message to my address from your cell phone, OR you may write your message on a 3 X 5 card and turn it in.