Summarizing - Grade 4

Which best describes a summary?

• a really long detailed piece of writing
• the entire text told in your own words
• a dumb thing that teachers make you write
• the main ideas and important details of a text

What is the difference between retelling and summarizing?

• A summary is a long detailed paragraph and a retell is not.
• A retell is telling about all the events while a summary only talks about main ideas.
• Retelling and summarizing are the same thing.
• Retelling is a word used for little kids and summarizing is used for big kids.

When should you write a draft of your summary?

• immediately after reading the text for the first time
• before coding the text
• before re-reading sections you didn't understand
• after you've read the text, coded it and re-read any sections you didn't understand

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

What is a summary?

• a short explanation of a text
• a persuasive argument about a text
• a movie based off of a book
• a theme or universal lesson

San Francisco is located on the coast of California in an area often called the Bay Area. The weather is generally very mild, seldom getting really cold or really hot. Its mild climate is one reason many people live there. It seldom snows in San Francisco and generally does not get below freezing during the winter. Even in the middle of summer, temperatures may be in the mid 80s with a cool breeze from the bay keeping the weather very comfortable.
The Summary of this passage is:
 

• San Francisco has many neat things to do.
•  It seldom snows in California.
•  Many people choose to live in California.
•  The weather in San Francisco is generally very mild.

When writing a summary for a INFORMATIONAL text, what is a good thing to consider?

• characters
• solution
• details and facts
• conflict

When you determine the main idea of a text, significant details and condensing information into a short one or two sentence summary, you are:

• predicting
• evaluating
• summarizing
• judging

To retell something in your own words is to...

• classify
• paraphrase
• distinguish