Summarizing is an important skill for students for

  • textual comprehension
  • application of ideas


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

Bloom's taxonomy of learning

Blooms rose
  • Summarizing is an important fundamental step towards higher-order thought
  • per Bloom's "taxonomy" of learning
    • summarizing is part of the 2nd order learning category, "Comprehension"
      • therefore, summarizing is essential for comprehension
      • along with summarizing, per Bloom's taxonomy "Comprehension" also includes
        • restatement, paraphrasing, illustrating, explaining, distinguishing, extending

Elements of summarizing

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"

Techniques for summarizing

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