In high school and college, students will be asked to practice their summary skills in almost all of their classrooms – from English Literature Summary to Biology Science Articles. However, if your students haven’t learned how to summarize, this seemingly simple task can be a challenge, as many students write reflections or arguments outlining their views instead of summarizing what the author said. Requiring students to complete summary templates for each chapter they read is a good way to help them improve their summary skills.
Write a sample introductory sentence with blank spaces where children can fill in specific information. Under or next to the blanks, indicate what information students should provide.
For example: “In (chapter title in quotes), the st / th (chapter number) of the book **** (book title in italics) by ___ ___ ___ _ (author name), the author discusses ___ (main idea).
If children read different types of books, such as fiction books, biographies, and textbooks, provide several different introductory templates and explain why students would need a different type of introduction for each book.
After the introductory sentence, place a text box on your document. Write the following instructions at the top of the box:
“In the previous step, you identified the main idea or action for the chapter. Now think about the main ways the author discussed this main idea or argued for this main idea. List three to five ways in the list below. ”
In the text box, provide a numbered list from 1 to 5. If students are writing fictional summaries, review the guidelines for requesting items from the main event.
Place five more text boxes after the one you created in step 2. Have students use the boxes to describe only the most important elements of the items they listed in step 2. Keep the boxes. intentionally small; this will encourage your students to write concisely, which is a requirement of writing an abstract.
Include in your document a small glossary of final transitions, such as “So”, “in conclusion”, “overall” and “in summary” and what each means. Ask students to choose one.
Write a sample concluding sentence the same way you wrote the introductory sentence, with blanks and the item that should be placed in white in parentheses next to the white. For example :
“(Conclusion of the transition of the box above), Chapter * __ (number of the chapter), titled * _ * _ (title of the chapter in quotation marks) of the book ****** (title of the book in italics) mainly (verb explaining what the chapter did: explained, discussed, etc.) _ (main idea), __ (statement about the whole book, such as “to advance the author’s conservative point of view such as ‘established in the first chapter)