Improving Summarization Skills in Content Areas
Updated: July 5, 2005
Think About... improving student skills in summarizing documents and research information.
Students are often asked to summarize material they read. How can you lead a discussion with your class of what makes a good summary? In this lesson, students paste text into a Word document and then use the AutoSummarize tool to explore and discuss the elements of a good summary.
How Does This Look?
1. | First, find 2-3 examples of text that relate to your curriculum. This can be from Encarta, websites, or any electronic document. If you teach writing styles, you might select from an essay, a narrative, and a report. |
2. | Copy and paste the data into separate Word documents and save the files to a shared folder. |
3. | Make the files Read Only if desired. |
4. | Have students or teams open the files and write a short summary of the information in a separate Word document. |
5. | Check off this summary before continuing. |
6. | When their original summary is completed, have students go to the Tools menu and select AutoSummarize. |
7. | Have students explore the variables of percentage to see the effect on the summary. Have students think about the similarities and differences that they discover between their summary and the Word summary. |
Assessment
Students can create a journal entry reflecting on the process and what they learned. Prompts might include:
| • | How did your summary compare with the Word summary? |
| • | How do you think Word decides what information to include in the summary? |
| • | What percent of a document makes for the best summary? |
| • | What do you think a good summary should contain? |
Academic Standards
Evaluation strategies
ISTE NETS Standards for Students
| • | Students use technology tools to enhance learning, increase productivity, and promote creativity. |
| • | Students use productivity tools to collaborate in constructing technology-enhanced models, prepare publications, and produce other creative works. |
