Sunday, May 6, 2012

Resources for Teaching Summarizing

It's been six years since Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Retelling was published. I'd like to say that the story ended happily ever after with everyone summarizing perfectly every year.

But that's not the way things work with real children, is it? (And wouldn't it be boring if things worked out that way? I don't think I could possibly teach the same thing year after year.) In the six years since Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Retelling, I've created new lessons and new tools for teaching summarizing...and I've put many of them online to share.

Summarizing Rubric
The rubric below is a six-point rubric that I created this year. My goal was to create something that would reflect the transformational nature of skilled summarizing.


Summarizing Lesson
One time effective way to help students write a summary is to model the process of distinguishing between important ideas and less important ideas. This model lesson and text guides you through the process of doing this with students.


Summarizing Powerpoint 
This presentation explains the process of writing a summary for students.

Writing a summary of nonfiction
View more PowerPoint from Emily Kissner

Paraphrasing and Summarizing Lessons for Nonfiction Reading
I love to write classroom-ready activities and texts. (I've spent way too many planning periods frantically searching through old workbooks and magazines and any other sources trying to find suitable text--eventually, I realized it was easier to just write it myself!)  This unit plan includes four texts at different levels, another text for sorting more important/less important ideas, choosing the best summary activities, and paraphrasing help. ($3)

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