概要

To summarize is to put in your own words a shortened version of written or spoken material, stating the main points and leaving out everything that is not essential. Summarizing is more than retelling; it involves analyzing information, distinguishing important from unimportant elements and translating large chunks of information into a few short cohesive sentences. Fiction and nonfiction texts, media, conversations, meetings, and events can all be summarized.

For example, to summarize the movie Memento, you might state: The movie Memento is a backward chronology of a man who tries to find his wife's killer, but has short-term memory loss. He keeps track of facts by taking pictures of events and tattooing facts onto himself.

Why Is It Important?
Summarizing allows both students and teachers to monitor comprehension of material.

Summarizing helps students understand the organizational structure of lessons or texts.

Summarizing is a skill at which most adults must be proficient to be successful.

Summarizing and reviewing integrate and reinforce the learning of major points...these structuring elements not only facilitate memory for the information but allow for its apprehension as an integrative whole with recognition of the relationships between parts (J. E. Brophy and T. L. Good, 1986).

In a synthesis of the research on summarizing, Rosenshine and his colleagues found that strategies that emphasize the analytic aspect of summarizing have a powerful effect on how well students summarize (1996).

How Can You Make It Happen?
Introduce summarizing to students by pointing out that they verbally summarize every day. Model a verbal summary by summarizing something you watched on television or a conversation that you had with a friend or another teacher. Point out that summaries don't include opinions.

For example:

"Last night, the San Francisco Giants beat the Atlanta Braves 3-1, to win the National League Division Series. Barry Bonds hit his th