Summary Lesson
- Teach students what a good summary is and is not using the anchor chart below. You may also examples and non-examples from an assessment.
- Practice generating summaries using various texts from fiction and non-fiction.
- Use the graphic organizers to generate summary information.
- Have students generate summaries on a text every student has read. Use the graphic organizers to generate summary information.
- Type up the summaries (no student names).
- Cut out the summaries into individual summaries.
- Tell the class you are playing "My Summary is Better Than Your Summary Because!"
- Review what a good summary is and is not using the anchor chart.
- Explain that each student will get a summary, write their name on it. It will be the one they wrote. They are to be respectful and not say anything unkind. They are only to discuss the summary based on the facts of what a good summary is and is not. They are not trying to figure out who wrote it.
- They are to respectfully discuss and rank each of the summaries in their small group (4-5). Once they feel confident that they have theirs ranked from best to worst, they'll put themselves in order by best to worst in a line. They will then find another group who is ready to rank the combined two groups. They'll discuss and rank the summaries again until they have the summaries again in order from best worst. They will up with two long summary lines.
- Then bring the class to attention and discuss the two worst and rank those and the two best to determine the best summary. I also have the students discuss what they observed during their discussions about the summaries to reiterate what they were looking for.