33 Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting

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Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting

Start-Up Activity

Provide novels to your students, allowing them to read the summaries on the backs. After they finish, ask which of them would want to read the novel after reading the summary. Why or why not? Then ask what features of the summary caught their interest—or turned them off.

Point out that novels have summaries so that a person can decide whether or not to read the full piece of writing. When students summarize articles and larger works, they are also showing their understanding of the ideas they have read about.

Think About It

“This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.”

—Winston Churchill

Page 294 from Write on Course 20-20

Article and Summary

Ask students to cover the bottom half of this page with a piece of paper while a volunteer reads the sample article. Then lead a discussion about it.

  • What is the main point of this article?
  • What are some key details to support this main point?
  • Who wrote this article?

Have students uncover the bottom half of the page. Say to them, "Let's see how one student summarized this article." Have a volunteer read the paragraph. Point out the features mentioned in the side notes. Make sure students understand that a summary should contain just the main point and key details and be about a third the length (or less) of the original.

LAFS Standard:
TEKS Standard:
NE ELA Standard:

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Page 295 from Write on Course 20-20

Writing Guidelines

Bring a different article to summarize and distribute it among your students, or have them go online or to the library to find an article that interests them. Have them closely read the article, and then write down its main points and key details, as you did verbally with the article on the facing page.

Once students are ready to write, read to them the short paragraph under "Writing." Then have them create their summaries.

After they are done, provide the revising and editing checklist to help them improve their summaries.

LAFS Standard:
TEKS Standard:
NE ELA Standard:

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Page 296 from Write on Course 20-20

Paraphrasing and Quoting

Help your students understand the difference between paraphrasing and quoting. Most of the time, they should paraphrase, putting ideas in their own words to show their understanding. Only if an idea is expressed especially well in the original should students quote.

Lead them through the guidelines for each way to include someone else's ideas. Then teach the "Helpful Hint" to show how to credit sources.

LAFS Standard:
TEKS Standard:
NE ELA Standard:

Related Resource Tags

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English Language Arts: