Topic: Summarizing.

10-second review: Shows students how to summarize with a kind of indirect technique. Students are asked to judge three statements for their accuracy and completeness as summaries.

Title: “Don’t Tell Them To Do It…show Them How.” LR Putnam. Journal of Reading (October 1974), 41-43.

Summary: Students read a lengthy selection from a science or social studies text. Students are then given three summaries and sets of judgments: “Has nothing to do with the text”; “Is related to the Text, but composed of minor details”; “The best expression of the summary.”

After students practice the previous judgments, they are given another set of three criteria: “Contains minor details”; “Summary expressed poorly”; “Summary expressed well.”

Students practice recognizing accuracy and completeness of summaries and then compose their own summaries with these criteria in mind.

Comment: Seems like a good idea. Students have to recognize good summaries and then complete their own. I might use a different set of criteria. RayS.