Summarizing is not an easy skill to learn!

Hello colleagues, I think learning to summarize is one of the most difficult skills to acquire. I recall reading something many years ago that has stuck with me. Learners need to be explicitly taught how to summarize. I can't assume that they know how to apply this skills, so I must find ways to model for them and then support them through the learning process. Seeing many good examples is also important.

I came across a helpful blog post that features a 2-minute video as well as student handouts focused on summarizing. The focus of the blog is K12, but the principles and strategies are also relevant with adult learners. Tell us what you think.

How do you teach summarizing? You are welcome to share your successes as well as any challenges you may have had with teaching this important skills.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Teaching & Learning CoP

Comments

Thanks for bringing up this topic for further discussion, Susan, and for sharing the video.

I think that all too often, we don't provide enough examples of good summaries to let students observe before doing. We jump in too quickly to provide rules and techniques, forgetting that some students simply like to observe and reflect before they try new ways of doing something. 

I hope that you who are reading this will suggest some good sources that provide good examples of summaries that are written at lower reading levels, say 5th-7th. Can't wait. Thanks. Leecy

Hi all, 

I found that using favorite television series or movies help students understand the idea of summarizing.  Sample activities I have used is to ask students to briefly provide me an introduction of a favorite TV show, not using the name of the show, to peak my interest. Additionally, other students in the class have to 'guess' at what show is being introduced. We have used the summarizing skills at telling me important plot points in less than 5 sentences. 

We then transition this concept to summarizing text, stories, or news articles. Starting with something familiar and fun for the students has made this a successful strategy for introducing this concept. 

Kathy

Hi Kathy,

Thanks. This is a great strategy for helping learners get comfortable with a new skill like summarizing, using content with which students are comfortable and familiar such as TV series, soap operas, yesterday's or last weeks class (for those who missed it) and other familiar, shared experiences. How do you explain what a summary is, especially what a good summary is or does? Have you found anything in writing, or a video, that you think does this well? If so, could you share it with us?

David J. Rosen

My strategy for my current classes is to use popular shows. Recently, I've been using the Netflix show Stranger Things. I bring up plot summaries from IMBD . We unpack these as a class. We discuss if the summary gives enough information to understand what happened in the show. We can even compare and contrast different summaries and then the class votes on the best one. IMBD (The Internet Movie Data Base) is a popular tool many of our students are already familiar with. 

This has been a very successful strategy for my students - it gives a model, we unpack the key elements - language, description, succinct writing - and then they do it. 

Kathy