HELPING STUDENTS WRITE SUMMARIES

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | January 31, 2017
            Summarizing is a synthesis process that h the key concepts, main ideas, and significant details in order to capture the essence of a lecture, class notes, a concept, event, experiment, theory, or article. This skill represents both Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and Costa’s Level 2. At this level, students are asked to transform or process target knowledge before responding (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006). This requires substituting, deleting, paraphrasing, and deciding what things to keep, all while having an awareness of the basic structure of the information presented. Marzano et al. (2006) highlighted that this brings out higher-level thinking skills and provides an opportunity to examine information in a new light. As a result, it promotes greater comprehension by asking students to analyze a subject to expose what is essential and synthesize it into a concise segment written in their own words.

One year, before having students write their individual summaries, we watched Flocabulary’s educational hip-hop song and video Summarizing. After watching the video we had a brief discussion, before reading and annotating a science article. Afterwards, students worked in groups to complete a gist summary template, before writing a summary that used the terms and phrases annotated within the article. For homework, I had the students write a song or rap that creatively summarized the information presented in the article.

            In another lesson, I provided students with a page of Cornell notes on data and measurements. I gave students a few minutes to review the notes and underline the most important concepts. The students discussed what they underlined with a nearby partner for about 4 minutes. I walked around the room to monitor student conversations and make sure students were explaining what they underlined and why. After 4 minutes expired, students continued to work in pairs to generate a 50-word summary of the notes that integrated the important concepts they underlined. A few volunteer groups shared their summaries with the class. After each group shared their summaries, I solicited constructive feedback that highlighted excess ideas as well as quality information in the summaries from the other class members.

When I had students write an individual summary after taking notes on a given science topic, I provided them with a Cornell Note-Taking Summary Template and reviewed the steps on the handout. I then asked students to individually write a complete a summary in response to the essential question and sub questions embedded within the lesson. Then, they shared and revised it with a partner. After about 10-15 minutes, I had a few students share their summaries. To better help my visual learners, I took snapshots of the work of students who shared their summaries and showed them to the class so students see and hear the ideas of their peers. We then, critiqued one of the shared summaries as a class. Next, I had students exchange their summaries with a peer, and had their peers write one suggestion for how to improve the summary. Afterwards, the partners discussed the suggestions. Finally, I allowed the students to revise or rewrite their summaries for homework.

 Think about textbooks for a minute. They are usually dense with information and contain many vocabulary words that are unfamiliar to students. The more advanced the textbook, the denser the text. Students, sometimes also teachers, have difficulty deciphering what is important and what is of secondary value. Teaching students how to identify the main ideas from text sources, describe supporting details to clarify the main idea, and focus on the purpose of the text is vital to their success in college-level courses. Especially, where there is less guidance about what information should be learned.

During one lesson, to help students summarize informational text, we opened one section in the electronic version of our biology textbook and used an online tool that allowed PDF annotation, DocHub, Hemingway Editor is also a good tool. Then, I distributed a copy of the Steps in Summarizing Informational Texts handout to students. Next, I had the students complete the steps listed in the handout one by one, as I discussed and demonstrated on the projector screen. Afterwards, I asked the students to exchange papers with a partner and review the summaries, providing one suggestion to improve the summary that he or she was reading. I directed them to use the “Tips for Writing Summaries of Text” at the bottom of the handout to make sure that the summaries were clear, consistent, and concise.

As the year progressed, I found that some students still needed support. So, I provided sentence frames for students to use in writing their summaries. Additionally, I directed them to an Avid resource that provided criteria for writing good summaries, a temple, student sample, checklist, and rubric for self-evaluation.

Suggested Citation

Tolliver, A. R. (2017). Helping Students Write Summaries. [Education Project Online]. Retrieved online at http://www.educationprojectonline.com/2017/01/helping-students-write-summaries.html.

References

Marzano, R. J., Pickering. D. J, & Pollock, J. E. (2006). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria,

VA: ASCD.

Varlas, L. (2002). Getting acquainted with the essential nine. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

Curriculum Update.