We are always asking students to summarize what they read. Summarizing takes practice- & a lot of it. It also involves consciously using other reading skills like identifying the main idea, inferring, determining importance and identifying story elements. There's so much going on in this process of summarizing that seems so simple to us as adults. I have looked at the method of "somebody wanted, but, so, then." I'll just be completely transparent here: I hate it! It might work at the most basic level, but I want my kids to be able to summarize anything and everything that they ever read. What if the somebody didn't want something? What if it's non-fiction and there's no problem? I really really tried to see the beauty in using this simplified process. I rifled through dozens of books trying to find several that I could use as mentor texts. It was more difficult to find the "perfect" book to fit the process than it was to change the process to fit the book. Included in this product you will find a student friendly summarizing rubric perfect for practicing summaries orally and through writing. Students summarize the same stories, retell together and use the rubric to score and give thoughtful feedback. I have also included a detailed step by step page for supporting summarizing at home using this method. Check out my blog post for more mentor texts and other ideas for teaching summarizing: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9160274308023189289#editor/target=post;postID=1326713870227479249;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=2;src=link
