Strategies that Work - Summarizing and Synthesizing

In Chapter 11, Harvey and Goudvis describe summarizing as pulling out the most important information from a text and putting it in our own words to remember it.  They compare synthesizing to a jigsaw puzzle; when we read we manipulate hundreds of pieces of information until a new picture emerges.  Sometimes our purpose to reading is to sift through the text to get the gist, while other times we use the information from the text to draw conclusions, consider implications or to take action.  Summarizing is often a step a reader must take in order to synthesize, that is why the authors combined these two skills in Chapter 11 of Strategies that Work.

Retelling to Summarize Information

When teaching early readers to summarize, the following tips might be helpful to provide:

•          Remember to tell what is important
•          Tell it in a way that makes sense
•         Try not to tell too much

Elementary teachers can begin by reading picture books aloud, then modeling a brief and salient summary.  As students try this out for themselves, they may begin by jotting down a few key words during or after reading, then using those words to formulate a complete summary statement.

Paraphrasing to Summarize Expository Text

When reading informational text, students can bracket off chunks of texts and write a brief summary of that chunk in the margins or on post-it notes.  Students can sometimes be distracted by information that is interesting but not necessarily essential to the overall meaning of the text.  To separate the necessary from the unnecessary, students can record these details in a two-column chart like the following:

What’s Interesting	What’s Important

After completing the graphic organizer students may notice and discuss how sometimes the interesting information is truly important, while other times interesting information can distract readers from the main ideas.

I used both parts of this strategy in the unit for Beowulf that I included in the Content-Area Reading Plan.  This unit included a nonfiction article called “Life in 999: A Grim Struggle”.  Since this passage contained information that was important to the understanding of Beowulf, as well as numerous interesting but less-than-relevant bits of information, I thought this strategy would be useful.  Students found the bracketing and summarizing to be helpful and easy to implement – it was similar to other strategies we use on a regular basis.  The “What’s Interesting/What’s Important” chart was an eye-opening experience for some students.  They had not been distinguishing between what was interesting versus what was important.  I had to remind them of their purpose for reading (to build background knowledge to help them comprehend Beowulf) in order for them to focus on what was important for that purpose.  I will definitely use this strategy more in the future.

Synthesizing: How Reading Changes Thinking

The main purpose of reading is to add new information to our knowledge base and integrate it into our thinking.  Sometimes the information we read reinforces and refines what we already know, while other times reading changes our thinking or our viewpoint.  Have students record their thoughts on a subject before reading, then again after reading.  This will make the learning that they gained through reading explicitly clear.

I practiced this strategy with a Freshmen Success class for which I had been asked to do a model lesson.  They were beginning a unit on appropriate online behavior, and this day they would be reading an article called “Avoiding Facebook Drama”.  Since this is a topic about which most students have a great deal of background knowledge, I thought this was an ideal strategy.  It turned out, as I suspected, that students were familiar with some of the suggestions made in the article, although many of the suggestions were new.  Instead of getting the typical response from a high school freshman (“I know this already”) students focused more on the suggestions that were new.  Students were able to merge their new learning with their background knowledge in order to begin making wiser choices regarding social media.

Comparing and Contrasting in Science and Social Studies

When students are in science and social studies classes they often have to make sense of two different properties or concepts.  A three column chart like the following can be helpful.  Notes can be recorded for each topic in its column, and then similarities between the two topics are listed in the middle.  The middle section is a synthesis of the information gathered about each topic.

The British	Alike	The Colonists

Summarizing the Content and Adding Personal Response

Students can divide a paper in half and record their summary of the text on one side and their personal response on the other.  After a while they can practice combining these two into a Summary Response.  Both can be introduced through modeling and can be practiced independently by students over time.  A Summary Response requires higher-level thinking because the reader’s thinking is integrated with the information from the text.

Reading for the Gist

When readers synthesize, they get the gist.  What Harvey and Goudvis recommend is to have students record notes on questions, visualizations and inferences while reading.  These multiple strategies come together to help students develop a deep understanding of the story.

Writing a Short Summary

After reading, have students record notes on a two-column think sheet titled “What the Piece Is About/ What It Makes Me Think About”. Remind students that the reader’s thinking is the most important part of reading, therefore this is the column that should be filled out first.  Next, have students share their thinking with others.  In preparation for the written summaries, tell students to do three things:

•  Pick out the most important ideas
•  Keep it brief
• Say it in your own words in a way that makes sense

Ask students to turn to a neighbor and discuss what they thought was the most important idea in the story.  Collect student responses and list on the board.  Review the list with students afterwards, asking whether each item is important enough to belong in the summary.  Write the summary that will go in the “What the piece is about” column as a class.

Writing as Synthesis: Personalities from the Past

When reading about important historical figures, it makes sense to ask, “What’s important to remember about them?” and “What lessons can we learn from their lives?”.  Assign students to read a biography about a famous person who has made a difference in the world or overcome an obstacle.  Record details about the biographical subjects during reading on a chart like the following:

Topic: ______________________________________________________
Subtopics	Details
Family
Why he/she is famous
Interests/Dreams
Other interesting facts

Since merging the students’ thinking with the details from the text is so important, the next step is for students to record notes on the following chart.

Facts from the Text	Response

The goal is for students to be prepared to write about the famous person that they researched while including their personal voice in their writing.

Synthesizing to Access Content

In order to help students articulate their thinking as they read for information, two teachers developed a two-column chart labeled “Content (Facts)/Process (Thinking)”.  As this may seem like a rather dry lesson, using the most interesting text possible is recommended.  Here a news article, “Moonstruck Scientists Count 63 and Rising”, was used.  The teacher can model recording factual details in the “content” column, then list questions (coded Q) or inferences (coded I) that attempt to answer the questions.  Since understanding what we read requires ongoing thinking, this activity helps students see the process of evolving thoughts that should be taking place inside their heads whenever they read.

Reading Like a Writer

Reading like a writer means noticing the word choices and the structure of a text as well as the content. In the article mentioned in the last section (“Moonstruck Scientists Count 63 and Rising”) students automatically took notice of the writer’s style, particularly the way the first few lines grabbed the reader’s attention.  The teachers who designed the two-column chart decided to add a third column in order to encourage such observations.  Now the chart looked like this:

Content (Facts)	Process (Thinking)	Craft (Writing)

This form gave students the opportunity to reflect on writing style and to imitate these techniques to enhance their own writing.  This is now the ultimate synthesizing response form.  Students who can record facts, explain their thinking process during reading and reflect on the craft of writing are on their way to becoming literate thinkers.

Trying to Understand: Seeking Answers to Questions That Have None

Although it can be difficult to teach and try to explain to children why horrible tragedies such as the Holocaust have occurred, not teaching students about such events is to deny children invaluable learning about the strength of the human spirit and the triumph of survival.  A vow of “never again” can be the central message of a unit on the Holocaust.

Give students post-it notes as they read the stories of Holocaust survivors and encourage them to record their thinking as they read.  Most of what the 8^th grade students who participated in this lesson recorded were questions – many of which had no clear answers.   The simple act of writing the questions down helped students to construct meaning and gave them insight into their own thoughts and feelings. Discussing their questions and pondering answers will increase student comprehension, even when no definitive answers are reached.  

Remembering the significance of these tragedies and vowing to never allow such atrocities to occur again is synthesizing.