Fun with Summarizing
Reading to Learn Lesson Design
II. Materials: multiple copies of Judy Blume’s Freckle Juice, five large sheets of butcher paper, markers
1. I will pre-assign the book Freckle Juice by Judy Blume to the entire class at
least a week in advance to this lesson. It is a short chapter book that is forty-seven pages and is five chapters long.
2. On the day the reading is due, I will ask the students to take out their books.
3. Now that everyone has completed the book Freckle Juice, we are going to learn how to write a summary. A summary is a paragraph that is written in your own words to tell about a story you have read. Writing summaries helps you to remember what you have read, and it can be a lot of fun.
4. I want everyone to read chapter one again to yourselves. As you read, write down some words or ideas that you think explain about what is going on in the story.
5. When they are finished I will begin discussing story mapping. We are going to make a story map to help us write our summaries. (I will hang a piece of the butcher paper on the chalkboard. I will write on it with a marker.) First, I will draw a big circle in the middle of my paper. Inside the circle I will write “chapter one”. I am going to ask you what some of the words and ideas are that you wrote down. Each time I write one of your words or ideas, I will draw a line from our big circle and draw a little circle to write your ideas in.
6. As a class we will complete the story map. Now, that we have finished our story map, we are going to write a summary. Our summary only needs to be three to five sentences long, which makes a paragraph.
7. Together as a class we will discuss their ideas and condense them into a short paragraph summarizing the first chapter. I will write the paragraph on the butcher paper. Then I will split the students into four groups.
8. We have four groups of students in our classroom and there are four more chapters in Freckle Juice. Each group will be responsible for one chapter. Everyone will read his or her chapter silently. When everyone in your group is finished, raise your hand and I will bring you a piece of butcher paper and markers. As a group, you will make your own story web and write a summary of you chapter at the bottom of the page.
9. Now that everyone is finished, every group will come up and present their story map and summary of their chapter. Everyone has done such a great job! I am so proud of all of you!
IV. Assessment: I will use their presentations, story maps, and summaries to assess the students’ understanding and comprehension.
Blume, Judy. Freckle Juice. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. New York: 1971.
Swindall, Tamra. “Learning to Summarize”. www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/inroads/swindallrl.html.
Tomlinson, Lindsey. “Comprehension in the Cold”. www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/inroads/tomlinsonrl.html.
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