Alternative strategies for summarizing

One strategy for summarizing that I like to use is the Cornell Method.  This is a strategy that teaches students how to take notes and organize information.  It encourages students to read complicated informational texts more carefully and practice the important skill of summarizing. I found this link on YouTube that explains it a bit more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t_Vzeq5L3g&feature=related

I also like to use guide questions.  With this strategy, students take a section and make it into a question – for example, if a section of the article is called transportation and logistics – a question that would be generated is “What is transportation and logistics?” This provides a guide question for what students should look for as they are reading and will then summarize the main idea(s). In addition to generating guide questions from the topic,  the questioning strategy ReQuest from the book Reading for Understanding extends this idea of developing questions to read for understanding which then develops the ability to summarize.

Comments

Melanie, Thanks for sharing these ideas for structuring summarizing. As I indicated in another post, we can't assume adult learners know how to summarize, we need to scaffold, by using strategies such as you identify here, to support students in learning how to develop this valuable skill.

Thanks for the video link, too!

Cheers, Susan

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