Austin Independent School District
Austin Independent School District:teaching Summarization to Struggling Students
A lesson designed to teach learners how to recognize an effective summary. Following the lesson, several practice fiction and nonfiction texts are available in both English and Spanish for grades 3, 4, and 5. Answer key provided. [PDF]
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Eye Witness Reporting
In this activity, the students will develop a briefing for a T.V. evening news program that summarizes their experiences surviving in the Amazon rainforest. The students will have the opportunity to role play as interviewer and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Renewable Energy Living Lab: The Bright Idea
Students use real-world data to evaluate the feasibility of solar energy and other renewable energy sources in different U.S. locations. Working in small groups, students act as engineers evaluating the suitability of installing solar...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Graphing the Spread of Disease
Students simulate disease transmission by collecting data based on their proximity to other students. One option for measuring proximity is by having Bluetooth devices "discover" each other. After data is collected, students apply graph...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Evening News
In this lesson, the students will summarize their experiences in the Amazon rainforest by developing and presenting a briefing for a T.V. evening news program.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Guided Comprehension in Action: Teaching Summarizing
Students learn the ins and outs of writing biographies by researching a contemporary or historical figure and writing a summary.
Austin Independent School District
Austin Independent School District: Summary of Fiction and Nonfiction Text [Pdf]
This 31-page document focuses on teaching summarizing strategies for use with fiction and nonfiction texts. This series of lesson plans starts with fiction summarizing strategies such as "Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then" and "Story Arch."...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal Teaching is a strategy that asks students and teachers to share the role of teacher by allowing both to lead the discussion about a given reading. Reciprocal Teaching involves four strategies that guide the discussion:...
Literacy Head
Literacyhead: Images to Give Writers Ideas: Summarizing
A collection of images to serve as writing prompts for students.
Other
Wisconsin Educational Communication Board: Into the Book
This series of videos and interactive activities provide an excellent set of resources for teaching or learning the 8 research based reading strategies provided here. After receiving your "key" you can investigate the features inside and...
Read Works
Read Works: Grade 2: Three Lesson Unit: Sequence
[Free Registration/Login Required] A series of three lesson plans designed to teach students to retell and summarize a fiction story told in chronological order and a story told with flashback. Lessons are based on the books First Day...
Other
Mo Dept. Of Ed.: Life Is a Journey (The Odyssey Unit Plan)
Unit plan containing five lessons designed for ninth graders. They center around "The Odyssey" and the journey of life, and they teach reading strategies such as decoding, note taking, and summarizing. All are aligned to Missouri...
TES Global
Tes: Romeo and Juliet: Schools' Synopsis by Rebecca Lenkiewicz
[Free Registration/Login Required] This is a synopsis of the Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Other
Nsw Dept. Of Ed.: "One World" [Pdf]
Reading unit plan about endangered animals from the New South Wales, Australia, Department of Education and Training entitled "One World" (Forty-four page PDF file). It contains ten days worth of teaching suggestions that use a variety...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Building an Effective I Pad Lesson
Understand how personal devices can provide an environment for individualized learning. Summarize best practices when using personal devices to integrate project-based learning and other collaborative activities.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Using Comprehension Strategies With Elie Wiesel's Night
Working in small groups, students read and discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir Night and then take turns assuming the "teacher" role, as the class works with four different comprehension strategies.RI.11-12.4 Word meaning, RI.11-12.10b Text...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Writing Expository Text Summaries
This resource presents instructional practices for writing summaries of expository text in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies classes.
Scholastic
Scholastic Instructor: Vocabulary Stretchers
Here is a list of terrific ideas for teachers to use in the classroom to accompany vocabulary building lessons. These activities are well summarized and easy to understand.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Story Maps
Story Maps are used for teaching students to work with story structure for better comprehension. This technique uses visual representations to help students organize important elements of a story. Students learn to summarize the main...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Selective Highlighting
Selective Highlighting/Underlining is used to help students organize what they have read by selecting what is important. This strategy teaches students to highlight/underline ONLY the key words, phrases, vocabulary, and ideas that are...
ClassFlow
Class Flow: Baa Baa Black Sheep
[Free Registration/Login Required] This is a flip chart that teaches kindergarten students how to use relevant details in summarizing stories read aloud using the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep.
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Recommendations for Improving Adolescent Literacy
In its practice guide Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices, the Dept. of Education offers five recommendations for increasing the reading ability of adolescents. Those recommendations are...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: I Like Plants [Pdf]
"I Like Plants" is a one page, realistic fiction, reading passage about a person who loves plants and became a botanist; now she teaches her college students about plants and ecology. It is followed by constructed-response questions...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Grouping Students Who Struggle With Reading
There are a variety of grouping formats that have been proven effective for teaching reading to students with learning disabilities: whole class, small group, pairs, and one-on-one. This article summarizes the research and implications...