Writing Summaries the Easiest Way!

Lesson 1

We will use the story “Peter’s Chair” by Ezra Jack Keats during the lesson. Students are familiar with it because they have read it during Writer’s Workshop.

Review what it means to summarize.

Read the story to the group. Remind them to pay attention to the sequence of events in the story and which ones are most important. Have them notice, where the character experiences “change”.

After the story, take out the Story Arch copy from Writer’s Workshop and go over it.

Have students notice the rising action, climax, falling and resolution.

Take out a blank Story Step.

Use the Story Arch to fill out the Story Step. Explain that students might need to combine some of the events on the Arch to complete the Line. Explain that after each step, we need to look for how the character changed or grew or situation worsened. There should only be three steps then the slide, which is how the problem in story was resolved.

Afterwards, ask the students what lessons did the main character learn during the story? Come up with a short list of the main lessons.

Next will be to use the lessons learned to come up with a main idea of the story.

Students will then be able to use their Story Step to write or state orally a summary of the book they read.

Begin with " In 'Peter's Chair' by Ezra Jack Keats, the main idea is that Peter learns to grow up and share with his family. In the beginning of the story..."

A finished Story Step for “Peter’s Chair” should look like this:

Lesson 2

The next mini-lesson, students will be writing summaries on their own.

I will read the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros to the group.

After we read the story, I pass out blank Story Steps. Students will then take about 10 minutes to fill out their story steps. The will need to also come up with a couple lessons the main character learned then write the main idea of the story using those lessons.

Once Story Steps are complete, they will share with the members of their group. This will be to check to make sure that everyone picked the same main points in the story. Students will have a few minutes to check with each other and to add or take away any information that may be missing or unimportant.

Once they have finished, they will use their Story Step to then write out a complete summary of the story. They will begin with:
"In 'Eleven' by Sandra Cisneros, the main idea was...".

This should take about three to five minutes. Afterwards, they can share their summaries with the group orally. 

Students working on their Story Step for "Eleven"

After students have written their story step, they will need to give an oral summary of the book. They will not be allowed to use their graphic organizer. Stress to students the need to make good decisions about what is an important detail to share during the summary.

Here is a video of a student who did a great job on his oral summary!