The Art of Summarizing

This power-packed writing resource accompanied me to Texas this week.  I appreciate how well Aimee summarizes summarizing.   She reminds us in chapter five that summarizing in writing is just as essential as it is in reading.  "Students should have a concise idea of what they are writing" (p.87). As she teaches summarizes as a reading skill, she flips it into a writer's tool for revision.  <Reading and writing reciprocity at its best right here, folks!>


She tells her readers the best way she has learned to help children synthesize information and summarize just about anything is by asking these simple questions:  (And she means SIMPLE!)


Who? (Who is the character?)
Wants what? (What does the character want in the story?)
But? ( What is the problem? What gets in the way of the character getting what she or he wants?)
So? (So, what does the character do to solve the problem?)
Then? (And then what happens?  What's the wrap-up? how does the reader know the character moves on?)

When students write a narrative or piece of fiction, the reader should be able to summarize the story. Students ask themselves the above questions about their work.  The questions they can't answer, based on the stories they wrote, let them know how they must go back and revise their drafts (p. 89).

I can see how following this framework can certainly support teachers with teaching the art of summarizing.  Thank you, Aimee! 

Learning To Read At 27...

Riding on the crowded Seoul city bus

ipod in

thinking, wondering,

what am I doing here?

what is my purpose?

I am a traveler

I am an adventure seeker

I am a learner

I am a teacher

I am a child of God

trying to find my way.

Staring out the window

catching Korean symbols at a glance

pronouncing only the sounds

unknowing of how they fit into words

and the meaning they carry.

A banner

a chicken

a chicken with green glasses

 

치  킨    리틀

 

치킨

chic-ken

리틀

lit-tle

 

치킨

chic-ken

리틀

lit-tle

 

Chicken Little!

Chicken Little!

 

I can read!

I can read Korean!

 

Big smile

Proud of myself.

 

Wondering...

How many people in my country

cannot read the banners in our cities?

 

I am a traveler

I am a learner

I am a child of God

remembering my

passion and my talent.

 

I am a teacher

I want to give the gift

of learning to read

to others.

 

 

 

 

A Gray, Misty Morning in Suji...

The gray, misty morning was refreshing after the excruciating heat wave that had been wreaking havoc in Suji the past week.  I welcomed the splashes from passing cars as they sped by on the four-lane highway.  Everyone seemed happier in this wet, cool weather. The rain had melted many of the hard exterior facial expressions I often met on the street. The older Koreans were looking me in the eye today, smiling and nodding, instead of gawking at me as the overweight, pale-skin stranger.

As I waited patiently for the light to turn from green to red so I could cross the street to get a few last minute items at the local grocery store, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and thanked God for this beautiful rainy day in this strange new country I now called home.  I welcomed the rain as it gently kissed my face. I breathed in the dampness and city smell around me.  I thanked Jesus for the kind smiles and the cars passing by creating a nice breeze as they zoomed by me.   I thanked him for the man beside me on the old metal bicycle with the kind eyes. His gentle eyes and kind smile reminded me of my grandfather I once knew.  I said a little prayer for him that he wouldn't have to pedal too far in this wet weather.  I prayed that he, too, was thanking God for the relief from the weather. 

The beeping of signal crossing let me know it was time to get on with my errands for the day.  I slowly opened my eyes, trying to savor the last raindrop dripping off my nose. 

Screeching tires.  Metal colliding.  Horrifying gasps.  A sickening thud.   The man on the bicycle with the gentle eyes and kind smile lay under the tires of the rusty, green city bus.

Trust.

Since asked to write about "this I believe", I've found myself keeping this idea of "trust" closer to me than I realized.    This is what I've thought about in the last week:

I put my trust in the Lord every month when Elijah goes to work. Elijah leaves our little home in Shin Pond, America and flies across the country to Louisiana and then boards a helicopter to take him hundreds of miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

I put my trust in the Lord every month when Elijah hops on the helicopter and flies back across the country to Shin Pond, America.

I put my trust in the Lord when I confidently place my bundled-up bottom on the back of our snowmobile, and hang on for dear life as we travel to speeds up over 85 miles an hour.  One false move, and we could both meet our maker.

I placed my trust in the Lord and in someone else when I picked up a stranger in a snowstorm last Saturday night.  When the inebriated stranger wouldn't tell me his name, I put more trust in the Lord that we both would make it safely to our intended destinations.

I put my trust in the Lord when I watch my sister suffer with Chron's disease.  I trust that he will help her make smart decisions about her eating habits and help ease her pain.


Crafting my belief statement last week for this multigenre project helped make me more cognizant of how many times a day I place my trust in the Lord, others, and myself.  I also realize how many times a day my belief is tested when I worry about things I cannot control.

A Noise or Silence That Won't Go Away

Another prompt from the Pocket Muse...

"When did this start?" My worried, tired mind wondered. 
POW. POW. POW.
"I can't remember," I quickly answered myself.
POW. POW. POW.
Annoyed, I snuggled deeper under the covers and rolled over on my right side.
POW. POW. POW.
The cold, soft pillow welcomed the right side of my face and cradled my right ear.
POW. POW. POW.
"Can I really hear my heart beating in my ear or am I making this up in my head?" I silently asked myself. POW. POW. POW.
"Ugh.  I just want this noise to go away.  I need some sleep.  I need to get up in five hours, " I kept telling myself.
 POW. POW. POW.
"Is this how Mom knew something was wrong with her hearing?" I wondered.
 POW. POW. POW.
"I need to make sure I ask her," I told myself.
 POW. POW. POW.
"I guess the best way to describe this sound is a hammering noise, or like I can hear the blood being pushed through the blood vessels in my ear.  Either way, this is just crazy," I laughed to myself.
 POW. POW. POW.
"Maybe I'm just making this whole thing up... Maybe if I ignore it, it will just go away..." I tried to reason.

This sound still has not gone away.  I hear it most when my mind is not screaming one-hundred miles an hour. In the evening when I'm alone, just before I drift off to sleep, and when I first open my eyes, this is when my noise visitor likes visit the most.  I've learned that my little noise friend is tinnitus.  I've learned that I have a hearing loss in my right ear.  I know I'm my mother's daughter, because she experienced the same noise and was diagnosed with hearing loss at 31.  Three surgeries later, she wears hearing aids in both ears.   I wonder if I will have hearing aids in both ears at 60...

POW. POW. POW.

Verbs Are Sometimes Just a Matter of Opinion

A prompt from the Pocket Muse
Use the following verbs in any way you wish:

racket snug green spoon boggle snake

The thin, cloudy window pane racketed in the bitter, frigid wind as Sarah snugged deeper under her worn red flannel sheets.  My second Maine winter, she thought to herself.  Her new remote, isolated lifestyle suited her well.  Her thumbs now greened after her first season as a gardener.  Sink or swim.  If she hadn't learned to garden she would have starved to death last winter.  Sarah's mind wandered back through the day's events.  She was most pleased with herself for chipping a large hole in the ice on the lake and designing the clever apparatus to spoon the ice out the hole.  She now had access to water, melting snow just wasn't working out as well as she had hoped.  It boggled her mind to think about the high-stress, fast paced life she used to live.  She could picture her former friends still in the rat-race, snaking money out of high-profile investors.    Sarah shut off the light, rolled over, and thought about what adventure awaited her tomorrow.