Summarizing Texts

Which of the following statements is true about SUMMARIZING?

• A summary should include many story details.

• A summary is always found in the first sentence of a paragraph or chapter.

• A summary should always be fiction.

• A summary is what the passage is mostly about.

Which best describes what a summary is?

• The main or most important idea of the text

• A really long detailed piece of writing

• A dumb thing teachers make you write

• The entire text in your own words

The main idea is...

• The order in which events happen in a story.
• A series of important details identified in a nonfiction text.
• The big idea or life lesson that the author wants us to take away from a fictional story.
• A brief statement that you create which shows/reflects what a nonfiction text is mainly talking about.

A summary is...

• A list of key details in the text that are placed in the correct order.
• A short paragraph in a fictional story that reveals the big idea, lesson, or moral.
• A short paragraph that you create which includes the main idea of the text and some key important details.
• A short paragraph that you find in the text which includes the main idea and some key details.

A key detail is...

• A life lesson that the author is trying to communicate to us.
• An important point in the text that can help us find the main idea
• Reveals the main characters in the story.
• Is the main point the author is trying to make about the topic.

What is central idea?

• a topic of a text
• what the author is saying about the topic
• details that support a claim
• an opinion disguised as a fact

When would you most likely summarize a book?

• when you want to forget a book you've read
• when you want to tell a friend your opinion of a book but not what it was about
• when you want to tell a friend the gist or main ideas of a book
• when you don't understand a vocabulary word you read in a book

A summary should

• answer the 5 W's: who, what, when, where, and why
• describe the details but not the main ideas
• never mention the plot of the text
• always mention the age of the author

You should write your summary

• in your own words with complete sentences
• in a secret language that you make up
• in one draft without revising
• in fragments without punctuation

What can you summarize?

• only novels
• only nonfiction
• only movies
• anything you read or watch