Summary Writing- A Heroic Job!

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! 

It's a Summary Writer! 

Writing a summary isn't the easiest thing for my third graders to do. After YEARS of retelling on their DRA assessments third graders are required to write a written summary of the text they have read. This is no joke! In order to combat the evil of Dr. Summary each year we hold- Super Summary Boot Camp! We spend the day learning to write and practicing write summaries. 

I start by introducing my kids to this self-created anchor chart that defines the parts of a summary, what a summary is, and most importantly- what a summary isn't. 

The Superhero theme matches my Superhero themed classroom

Next, I read this SUPER fantastic book while using post-its to document the story elements that I will need to later write my summary. 

Then it's time to review and order my Story Element post-its to create my summary. We talk about the need to add transition words and to possible cross out plot points that we thought would be important, but don't belong in our summary. That's a TON of work! So it's time for a min break. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore has been turned into an Academy Award winning short film. The kids get out their snack and we watch the cartoon off Youtube. While the kids are busy watching I use our post-its to write my summary. 

We convene back together, we review my work, then it is time for them to get to work. Wearing their Superhero capes they get some leveled readers (one of the few times I use these) and they get to work reading, post-iting (that should totally be a word), and writing their summary. 

                   

Everything is more fun in a cape!  

From there I can collect their summaries, see who got it, and plan any strategy lessons necessary during upcoming Reading Workshop periods to help any heroes who struggled or need to clean things up. This boot camp prevents my kids who got the skill from having to write tons of unnecessary summaries and let's me get started with strategy lessons after only one day of summary instruction. 

Hope this post helps you to concur your summary woes. If you need more information feel free to comment below and I can share the Google Doc I created for my SUPER SUMMARY BOOT CAMP with you. 

Bye Buddies!

-Damien

SUPER Summary Boot Camp

Hello Buddies-

So, my third grade superheroes are great. They really are! They work hard! They love reading! but they can't write a summary to save their lives. Seriously- they either rewrite the entire story or they sum up the whole story in two sentences. With DRA time around the corner it was time for a SUPER Teacher to take action. (Are you humming a heroic tune in your head when you read this, because I am while writing this?)

The other class my co-teacher works with was on a class trip meaning that I would have her ALL DAY! (Are you now hearing a choir singing- you should be! It's how I felt!) So we decided to take the day and work on summaries, so the SUPER Summary Boot Camp was born. 

My co-teacher and I wore matching Captain America cardigans and capes

We started the day by having the kids suit up! Superhero strength was going to be a necessity today! Then I read The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore a fantastic book to model summary writing. 

I used this chart to help my little heroes figure out what was needed when writing a summary and used our Story Elements post-its to jot the important events while I was reading. 

Then we wrote a summary together so my little heroes would have a model to work from. 

After coming back from special we had snack and took some time to watch the Academy Award short film that was adapted from he book. It was a great film and really conveyed the message and heart of the book. 

How cute are they with their superhero capes on?!?!?!?!?

Then It was time for my little heroes to use their powers for good. I gave them a leveled reader (I knew they had to be good for something) and had them read, jot story element post-its, and write their own summaries.  Definitely heroic work!

Before sending them off we added some tips to our Summary Anchor Chart. 

Reading and jotting

The end result was pretty good! I only had four or five little heroes that I had to work with in small groups to help them really understand what a summary required. Have we all accomplished summaries in one lesson---heck no! But, we are closer than we ever were before! 

See ya later!

-Damien