Summarizing Fiction and Nonfiction

What does BME stand for?

• Beginning, Main Idea, and End

• Before, Main Idea, and Ending

• Beginning, Middle and End

• Back, Middle, and End

A summary does what?

• nothing

• tells an opinion

• makes an educated guess

• is a shorter way to explain a text with important information or key points

Summaries help me...

• understand what I'm reading

• write about what I read

• include the key points of a text

• all of the above

Tomorrow is Jill's birthday. She is excited because she gets to pick where she will eat dinner. Will it be Mexican food at the Big Enchilada House? Or will it be fried chicken at the Chicken Shack, or a big cheeseburger at Al's Hamburger Palace. She just couldn't decide. Then there was always the Pizza Shop with that great pepperoni pizza. How would she ever decide? Maybe she would just flip a coin.
The Summary of this passage is:

• Jill has many restaurants to choose from for her birthday.

•  Jill loves Mexican food.

• The Pizza Shop has the best pizza in town.

•  Jill will choose a place by flipping a coin.

It started when they got to the bears. Peter felt tired and his stomach hurt. He dragged himself over to see the elephants, which were eating from a stack of hay. Normally, the elephants were his favorite. Without much interest, Peter followed his classmates to the camels, which were busy swatting flies with their tails. Peter knew he should be having fun at the zoo, but he just felt terrible and all he wanted to do was lie down and rest. Even the lions and tigers did not interest him now. 
The Summary of this passage is:

• Peter's favorite animals were the elephants.

• The camels were swatting flies with their tails.

•  It was really hot at the zoo.

• Peter didn't enjoy the zoo because he felt really bad.

Right now Jason was playing right field. He really wanted to play third base. Earlier this year, coach had put him in left field and second base in a game, but never at third base. Once in practice, coach let him play third base, but he kept missing ground balls. When he did stop one, he made a bad throw to first base. Maybe if he kept practicing, Jason would be good enough to play third base. That was his dream.
The Summary of this passage is:

• Jason really wanted to play third base.

• Jason was the best player on his team.

• Jason had trouble catching ground balls.

• Jason was too lazy to practice.

For the walls, Jenny thought she would use a bright yellow paint. She would pick a border that had mostly bright red and green colors, and maybe a little bit of blue. She already had found some curtains that were sky blue with streaks of red, blue and yellow that she thought would go great with the walls. And finally, she had picked a carpet that was mostly blue with specks of red and yellow. Jenny couldn't wait till she was done decorating her room. It was really going to look awesome.
 The Summary of this passage is:

• Jenny likes bright colors.

• Jenny was going to paint her room.

• Jenny was picking out colors and materials to decorate her room.

• Yellow is a good color to paint your walls.

Julie watched the ants as they carried small crumbs down the trail to the anthill. She thinks ants are very hard working and industrious little creatures. They always seemed busy, and you never saw an ant just laying around doing nothing. They were carrying food, building tunnels, or defending the anthill. One thing you could say about ants is that they sure aren't lazy.
The Summary of this passage is:
 

• Ants carry many things.

• Some ants may bite you.

• Ants are hard workers.

• Some ants help take care of the queen.

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

• characters

• solution

• details and facts

• conflict

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

• text features

• story elements

• topic

• details