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Garden City School Library: Summarizing Stories

Essential Question

How can I distill a story into a brief summary?

1 - Discussion and Practice

  • Introduction: Ask the students what summarizing is and why it's a good skill to have. Explain that we're going to start with summarizing fiction.
     
  • Group discussion: Introduce the Somebody / Wanted / But / So / Then framework for summarizing a plot. Show this video to get it stuck in their brains: 



Read We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins. Afterwards, work as a group to summarize it. Who are the "somebodies"? What do they want?  

Next, read Rumpelstiltskin by Paul O. Zelinsky to the students. Before having the students start their summaries, review the list of potential “somebodies” – the girl, the king, Rumpelstiltskin, the miller, and the servant. Some kids will mention the baby, but since he's only a few months old, he doesn't really know what is happening, so don't use him.

2 - Individual Assigment

  • Individual work: Using this template, students summarize the story. The longer I teach, the fewer kids have any background on the story, so you can play a video version while they work in case they need to go through the plot again.




  • Assessment:

    4 = exceptionally well-written summary that encompasses key plot elements in just a couple of sentences

    3 = all elements within framework included and make sense 

    2 = summary element missing or improperly placed​ (kids often have a problem making the "but" transition)

    1 = student clearly was not listening to the story

Standards Addressed

AASL: I.B.3 - Learners engage with new knowledge by following a process that includes generating products that illustrate learning; I.C.1 - Learners adapt, communicate, and exchange learning products with others in a cycle that includes interacting with content presented by others; III.D.1 - Learners actively participate with others in learning situations by actively contributing to group discussions; IV.B.4 - Learners gather information appropriate to the task by organizing information by priority, topic, or other systematic scheme.

Common Core: RL.4.2 - Summarize the text; RL.4.6 - Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated; SL.5.2 - Summarize a written text read aloud

Rhode Island Cross-Curricular Proficiencies: Communication - Communicate understanding and interpretation of information; Problem Solving and Critical Thinking - Implement a plan or process of approach using tools and information.

Rhode Island School Library Curriculum Priority Skills: 1.1 - Summarizes information; states the main idea with some supporting details; 3.2 - Actively contributes to group discussions