Summarizing Teacher Resources

In this summary skill worksheet, learners research various online websites to educate themselves on what a summary is, when to write one, and how. Students are then required to find an article, read, and summarize with options for...

In this summarizing a story learning exercise, students tell a family member about the story and write a short summary. Students answer two questions.

In this writing worksheet, students fill out an outline about a plant that will lead them to writing a 3-paragraph summary. Students include a topic sentence and 4-5 details for each paragraph.

After a review of the steps involved in writing a summary, class members read The Physics of Baseball by Sarah Ives and use a story web to identify the important details to include in their summary. Class members then choose an article...

Pupils review the main points of note-taking to summarize the content of a formal or informal spoken presentation. They hear a guest speaker talk about a pre-arranged topic and take notes during the presentation. Next, they write a...

Learn how to summarize by identifying main ideas and supporting details. Readers cross out unimportant information as they read through a text. Is it a random detail? Cross it out! They then draw a concept map, placing the main idea in...

Discuss the reading comprehension strategy of summarization with your elementary schoolers! They read a chapter from their social studies textbook, Regions Near and Far, and create a map, or word web, for the chapter. They identify...

This scripted lesson suggests using the journalist’s five W’s (who, what, when, where, why) to teach readers how to summarize a story and to how to distinguish between significant and supporting details. A template and rubric are...

Your middle and high schoolers have written tons of summaries, but can they give a strong critique of an article they've read? Identify the differences between summary writing and critiquing. Choose an interesting article and have...

After reading Bel Kaufman's "Sunday in the Park," give your class the opportunity to react to the short story through writing. First they write a brief summary paragraph, and then they react to any events or characters' actions in a...

Does your class know the history behind today's telephone? They will after reading a very interesting one-page informational passage. They'll learn all about the way phones have progressed to the amazing devices they've become as they...

The country of Egypt is more than just big pyramids and ancient pharaohs. After reading a brief overview of this African nation, young learners will demonstrate their understanding of the text by identifying the main idea and supporting...

Early settlers in the American Midwest experienced constant struggle. This reading passage describes for young learners the hardships of homesteaders as they journeyed west and sought to start a new life. When finished, students identify...

Have your middle schoolers define the terms outline, summary, paraphrase, plagiarism, citation, reference, and bibliography. They identify the main ideas, topic sentence, supporting ideas in technical writing and create note cards using...

Although the title suggests this resource is devoted to Gulliver’s Travels, the materials and templates can be used with any work of literature. Readers fill out a reading schedule chart, write a summary, keep a vocabulary word list, and...

This online interactive quiz on 10 Shakespeare plays is unlikely to be useful for your class; however, you could use it as a basis for your own assignment that asks class members to come up with four words to describe an entire work. An...

Start off analysis of a text with a worksheet that asks pupils to complete several tasks. Class members note down a couple of characters or people and their distinguishing traits, describe the most important event, summarize the text...

Help your high schoolers navigate the cross-curricular text Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass with this reading guide. The questions guide learners through composing a summary of any given chapter in the text. In addition,...

Based upon the statistics, this is what it means. The last lesson in a series of 22 has pupils present the findings from their statistical projects. The scholars discuss the four-step process used to complete the project of their...

Explore the structure and content of the US Constitution in the second lesson of this five-part social studies series. A collection of activities, games, and videos complement a class reading of a document summarizing the US...

The eighth lesson plan in this series continues the focus on vocabulary and increasing young readers' awareness of academic language. Pairs of learners participate in a short vocabulary review activity called Interactive Words in which...

Scholars learn about the Hero's Journey as they read Ray Bradbury's "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." They analyze the story's structure and narrative techniques. Finally, they write summaries of the text's central idea and use their...

Why wouldn't Juno want to give a peacock the voice of a nightingale? After reading Aesop's fable "The Peacock and Juno," individuals learn to be content with what they have because perfection is unattainable. The passage comes with an...

Let's work together! Using the collaborative resource, scholars work in triads to begin section two of their storyboards about Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the television. They then practice using linking words and phrases to...