Summarizing

Summarizing is an important skill for students for

• textual comprehension

Summarizing

• the important cognitive skill of generalizing core or "Big Ideas" from larger textual or other source
  • "cognition" = conscious intellectual activity, i.e., deliberate thinking
• summarizing =
  • distinguishing between background and important detail
  • processing in one's own words

Active reading

• = thinking while reading =
  • applying prior knowledge
  • identifying new knowledge (unfamiliar words, ideas, details)
  • questioning and developing questions

Simplification

• identify the core of a sentence
  • SUBJECT VERB OBJECT
  • see how the sentence builds up from there
• identify "emphasis shifts"
  • which part of of the sentence does the writer wish to emphasize
    • independent clauses = emphasis
    • dependent and subordinate clauses = de-emphasis
• getting around unfamiliar words
  • strategy = replaced the unfamiliar word with "something" and read around it
    • an exception can be verbs, which are important to know for sentence comprehension

Identify background details v. Big Ideas

• which details define meaning
  • v. which details add to but do not define meaning?
    • ex. "Mackie is a happy little black, brown & red dog who loves to play with his toys"
      • "little" and "black, brown and red" do not change the meaning that "Mackie is a happy dog who loves to play with toys"

Re-statement of words & sentences

• summarization requires comprehension
  • but it is a skill that can be taught
• student comprehension is enhanced by re-stating in one's own words
  • it helps to discern what the student actually understands

"Teaching it back"

• one method to enhance summarization and student comprehension is to engage the student in "teaching it back" to someone else
  • "you can't teach it if you don't know it" works as a good measure of student comprehension in any subject or skill
  • in summarization it is helpful becuase it forces the student to articulate his or her own comprehension
  • if the student gets stuck, the teacher can ask the student to identify Prior Knowledge:
    • i.e., "Well, what do you know from this passage?
    • and build up comprehension from there

Asking questions

• question formulation is a process of
  • 1. identifying prior knowledge (what is understood or familiar)
  • 2. identifying new knowledge (what is not understood or familiar)
  • and 3. extending that prior knowledge by asking a question about it or the new knowledge

Thinking up titles

• Titles are summaries
  • ask the student to give each passage segment a title

Lesson Plan example or student exercise

Example 1: discerning background details from Big Ideas

A dog and a toy

1. Details:

• • black, white and red-haired, small dog
  • big green toy
  • green carpet
  • flooring showing in upper right corner
  • foot of a table showing to upper left

2. Unimportant details: 3. Important details

• • dog
  • toy

4. Other ideas to infer:

• • dog posed quietly for the photo
  • dog seems to have already played with the toy
  • the toy does not appear to have rips from chewing

5. Big idea:

• • what do we learn about the dog?
    • he likes the toy or toys
    • therefore, It is a playful dog = the BIG IDEA

Example 2: discerning background details from Big Ideas

Three dogs

1. Details:

• • three dogs, one multi-colored, two white-brown
  • dogs on the grass, one sniffing the ground
  • Washington Monument in the near background
  • some other buildings in the further background
  • flags
    • we might also notice that the flags are at half-staff

2. Unimportant details:

• far background buildings
• grass (fields have grass, so we learn nothing from that)
• presence of flags at Washington Monument

3. Important details

• • three dogs
  • the Washington Monument

4. Other ideas to infer:

• • the photographer, perhaps owner, deliberately posed the dogs in front of the Washington Monument
  • perhaps the photographer/owner could not get the dogs to pose and all three look at the camera
  • the flags at half-staff could be significant

5. Big idea:

• • what do we learn from the photo?
    • the dogs are alert, not fighting
    • the choice of the Washington Monument in the background is purposeful
    • therefore, Three dogs enjoying a walk by the Washington Monument = the BIG IDEA