Summarize With SUMMRY

Students will:

• Be able to use SMMRY to help summarize informational text.
• Know how to summarize a selection of text. 

Vocabulary Words:

1. Summarize: To summarize is to tell in or reduce to a short statement of the main points. 

2. Informational text: Informational text is used by authors to provide readers with information about a specific topic. This type of writing is usually nonfiction and has specific features.

3. Narrative text: Narrative text is a kind of text to retell the story that past tense.

To prepare for this lesson:

• Try out Summry yourself. You will find you need enough text to summarize. It will let you know if you need more text.
   
• Decide how you want students to use this tool.  Possibilities are with your whole group and you use the Summry together or small groups where students use the interactive screen to share their learning.
   

• Watch this video on writing a summary.

• Decide what type of text you want students to summarize. A good idea may be to take a story out of your reading series or science textbook for informational. Make sure you have that readily available in a digital folder or learning management system.

Note: If students have their own laptops the students can bookmark the website using this link https://smmry.com/bookmark. When students find an article to summarize, have it present in the focused tab/window, then just click the bookmark once and the article will be summarized.

See the Accommodations Page and Charts on the 21things4students website in the Teacher Resources. 

Directions for this activity:

1. The teacher will talk about what a summary is with the students.

2. The teacher will show the video to the students on how to summarize. 

3. The teacher will read a selection of text with the students.

4. The teacher will have them create a summary on their own. Specify the number of sentences. Give students 10-15 min to write a summary paper/pencil.

5. Have students cut and paste text from a designated area on computer into SMMRY.com. Compare the text.  Did they have enough info? What could they have added or what could they take out?

Different options for assessing the students:

• Observations
• Check for understanding

• Reflection or exit tickets with your students.

  • Are they any high 5’s?
  • Did they have enough info?
  • What could they have added or what could they take out?