Summarizing Mini Lesson

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

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

Read the following passage and then answer the question.
There are five teams of students in the fifth grade. The blue team has math first period, and the red team has science. The yellow team gets to go outside early in the morning, while the green team goes to music. Only students on the orange team get to play games first period. Each student wears a nametag with his or her color, so that the teachers and students all know where a student should be.

• Students are organized by teams with color names .
• The blue team has math first.
• Students wear nametags.
• The yellow team has the best schedule.

Read the following passage and then answer the question.
The Elk River flows from the far northern part of the state all the way to the southern tip. All kinds of animals rely on it for drinking water, people eat the fish they catch in it, and farmers in the state depend on it for irrigating their crops. Since there is very little rain in this state, the Elk River gives animals and humans the water they need to stay alive. Even though the river is not nearly the biggest in the nation, it is very important to the people and animals that live near it.

• The Elk River is a small river.
• The Elk River starts in the northern part of the state.
• The Elk River is very important to people and animals.
• People catch fish in the Elk River.

Read the following passage and then answer the question.
As soon as she arrived at grandmother's house, Jessica ran into her bedroom to look at the blue quilt. It covered her grandmother's bed and was Jessica's favorite. It had patches of dark blue, medium blue, and light blue, with pictures of birds and flowers on every other patch. Jessica liked to take naps with the quilt wrapped around her. She loved the way it felt so soft and warm against her skin. Whenever she was visiting grandma, just looking at the quilt made Jessica happy.

• Jessica's grandmother has a pretty blue quilt.
• Jessica loved her grandmother's quilt.
• Jessica took naps at her grandmother's house.
• The quilt was warm.

Read the following passage and then answer the question.
Books lay in the middle of his floor. Several broken toys were shoved halfway under the bed, and dirty clothes were everywhere. Frank's parents kept telling him to clean his room, but it never seemed to get clean. In fact, if Frank did manage to clean part of it, the rest of the room just got messier. In one corner of the room was an old peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and an open bag of potato chips was thrown on the dresser.

• Frank's room was a mess.
• A peanut butter and jelly sandwich was in one corner of the room.
• Frank liked potato chips.
• Frank got in big trouble because his room was not clean.

Read the following passage and then answer the question.
Math didn't make much sense to Cathy. She always got area and perimeter mixed up and she had no idea what a right angle was. Last quarter she failed math, and this quarter wasn't any better. As long as she could remember, math had been hard for Cathy. She did fine in reading and science, but not math. Now she was working on her math homework, but she didn't know how to do most of it. Who invented math, anyway!

• Who invented math?
• Cathy did well in reading and science.
• Cathy always got area and perimeter mixed up.
• Cathy was not very good at math.