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Assignment #3: Complete the 4 part assignment format as you read, reflect, and respond to Chapter 3 – Summarizing and Notetaking
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A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategies of summarizing and notetaking in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter. Below are the questions to help you complete your self-assessment. (Complete – but do not post!)
• In what situations is it important for my students to summarize?
• What does summarizing help my students do?
• What do I do to help students understand and use the process of summarizing?
• What questions do I have about using summarizing in my classroom?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 3 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for summarizing and notetaking. (Complete – but do not post!)
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to teach to your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom) – please post a brief reflection of how this went to the posting labeled Week Three: Summarizing and Notetaking. Click on the “comment” link below.
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/promps to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Three: Summarizing and Notetaking by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on summarizing affected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• How has reading this information affirmed some of what you already knew about summarizing?
• What is something you now understand better about summarizing?
• How might you change how you use summarizing in your classroom?
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Assignment 3
Kelsey Boyd
C.
Right now I am preparing my students to take the ELPA (English Language Proficiency Assessment), an annual test in Oregon. The ELPA has a reading section and I think my students would benefit by being able to summarize these passages and using the information to answer the questions. I took sample reading passages and using them explicitly taught my third, fourth and fifth grade students to use the Rule-Based strategy. Since we had not done summarizing in my classroom before this was a challenge. I used my docu-cam and each student had a copy of the passage. We read the passage all together and then I went through reading each sentence and asking the students if we really needed it to understand about sharks or if it was extra information. I also asked if we could say things using fewer words than the original author. All my students were very surprised to see how much we could delete and still have the passage make sense and keep its original purpose. I had them re write the passage using only what we left or changed and they were excited to see how much easier it was to deal with. We will continue to practice this skill since it is definitely not something you learn after only one try.
D.
While affirming what I know about the importance and basic mechanics of summarizing and note taking, reading this chapter made me think about how I summarize and take notes. I find that when taking notes I tend to write down as much information as possible because that is what works for me. I am still able to attend to the lecture or video while doing this but the chapter made me remember that not many people work well this way. I think we often forget that note taking is a skill that has to be learned and assume that everyone can do it. I also think that we assume that everyone can successfully take notes the same way. I know from personal experience that this isn’t true. I work best with a blank piece of paper and not graphic organizers. However most of my students would benefit from using the graphic organizers. While the information in this chapter isn’t new to me, it has reminded me to be aware of the different learning styles of my students.
The section about summarizing was interesting to me as well. I had not heard of many of the strategies, and cannot remember ever being taught how to do most of them. The “Rule-Based” strategy seemed to be the strategy that I use most often. However, I found it interesting to note that I don’t delete anywhere close to the amount of information that the example on page 31 did (Figure 3.2). This reminded me that my students don’t need to know all of the information in order to understand the concept or idea. This is very hard for me as a teacher since I get so excited about all the details and I want my students to be just as into it as I am. It reaffirms what I know about too much information just overloading my students and reminds me that they need a way to whittle the amount of information down to something manageable for them to remember and to orally communicate. This would be a very good skill to have in my classroom since being able to summarize information will make it easier to access and remember for my students. I will try harder in the future to incorporate this into my lessons.
C.
To make the information meaningful from the textbook used in my classroom, I use Cornell notes (three columns) notetaking and summarizing strategy. After the students read the information, along with guided discussion (teacher directed), each student independently goes back through each section and answers questions, fills in blanks about the reading and then at the bottom of each section the students write two sentences summarizing facts from each section. I think by going over the material again after reading the topic the students are learning the information, vocabulary, dates and events more successfully. Our school district is pushing the use of Cornell notes and three-column look of the notes. This type of notes is formatted like a web page, which makes it recognizable by visual students. These Cornell notes, I believe, are more guided and I believe are better than just having the students take notes on their own. Some teachers still do that and I don’t think students at the middle school level know how to differentiate between what is important to take notes over and just copying down the first few sentences from each paragraph. I feel I need to guide them and point out the valuable information. Valuable would be what I want them to learn, and what our district and state expect the students to learn. Ultimately, it is my goal to teach my students the “rule –based” strategy of deleting, substituting and keeping the pertinent information when summarizing and notetaking. I realize this is not natural for my students to already have in their arsenal and I must teach them the skill.
D.
From the reading, I am affirmed that I already know about the importance of notetaking and summarizing and this was comfortable to use in the classroom. It is important to teach my students and to remind myself about what is important in each chapter. Our school district is focusing on priority standards in each subject and grade level. I have never been really comfortable with teaching to the test, but it makes more sense to me now. We need to teach certain topics and information at each level and hopefully they will continue to build on their knowledge in each subject as they progress through school. The “here is a chapter and remember all the facts” will not teach my students what I am required to teach them. I will continue to use Cornell notes and summarizing practices in my classroom, and I would like to use more webbing notetaking and more visual drawings and/or diagrams along with the written notes. I also realize that students need explicit instruction on how to take notes and how to summarize and keep the important “stuff” that I want them to learn.
Week Three: Summarizing and Note Taking
Practice: In my classroom I use the phrase ‘Keep, Reword, Delete, Rephrase’. This is to help kids to really examine the material to be summarized in four phases. The first phase is to identify the most important points (including topic sentence). They then reword any lists into one word or shorter phrase. Third step is to delete everything that hasn’t been identified as important. The final and most important step is when the students rephrase the information in their own words. This is a HUGE jump for the students. They are used to more basic research options where they can just take the first sentence of each paragraph because it is always the topic sentence and the most important. When you have sophisticated documents that include implied topic sentences or have a need for inference the students really must have this skill. They must deeply understand the material, which means there is a certain level of careful selection necessary from the teacher. If it is over the students’ reading level or they do not have enough background knowledge of the content they will be frustrated and not able to really develop this skill.
Final Strategy Reflection: Reading this chapter affirmed for me that my students must have this skill in order to work towards more content understanding. While I want them to learn the content, being able to assimilate what is the most important in the information really is the difference between them retaining the information or just overloading. I don’t know that I really have in the past given my students a lot of options to read material other than the text book. After reading this chapter it seems like this would be something that my students would benefit from if I used meaningful, developmentally appropriate selections.
Hi Ladies!
Erica and Therese it is so exciting for me to read that your district is including note taking in its curriculum. How do you like the Cornell method? I haven’t used it, but my department head has mentioned it as a note taking system to teach to the students. I am currently at a high school and it’s very surprising how little discussion and continuity there is between the middle school and the high school’s curriculum. One of the things I’ve been working on this year (my first in this district) is to develop a research/information literacy curriculum that could be used from Grades 3-12. (With the primary focus starting in the high school and then working backwards to the middle school.)
Therese, your comments about the students not having “in their arsenal and I must teach them the skill” and “We need to teach certain topics and information at each level and hopefully they will continue to build on their knowledge in each subject as they progress through school” really resonate with me. A couple of things our department (Humanities) are realizing as they work with Director or Curriculum is that there is not continuity across the grade levels in covered material and there are gaping holes in students’ skills and knowledge. (For example research skills and learning about Africa or Central and South America.)
Have you seen the “Wonder Wheel” on Google? It is a feature that shows related search terms to the current searched query in a web format. Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out: http://www.googlewonderwheel.com/ You often find the link for the Wonder Wheel on the left hand side of the google page after you enter your search term under “All results.” (Like “Twin Towers”)
Erica, I love your phrase, “Keep, Reword, Delete, Rephrase.” It’s so simple and student friendly. I’d love to be able to share it with others if you don’t mind. Your reminder that there needs to be careful selection in material made by the teacher is so important! If the material is too hard and the students become frustrated then it’s just a waste of time. I think introducing a variety of reading materials at appropriate levels will def. enhance your curriculum and aid the students in developing this skill.
Kelsey,
Your lesson on the Rule-Based strategy sounds like it was successful. It’s great when the students see the purpose of the activity/lesson and how it can benefit them. (Like how the kids were able to manage reading the shorter, summarized passage much easier than the original piece.) Have you ever shown your older students a wikipedia article and then on the left hand side change the language to “simple English.” (Not all articles have this but many do.) It could be another way to demonstrate for the students that a shorter passage can convey meaningful information as much as the longer original passage. (And, I’m not saying that we want to only show students wikipedia as a source, but it does have it’s purpose and I know I jump there to quickly get background information or to confirm a fact.)
Many students in this class comment on the Rule-Based strategy and are eager to incorporate it into their classroom. (And as stated, many don’t remember actually being taught this method.)
Your point about how your method of summarizing and note taking is different, but not something that would work for everyone is another good point to remember. Again, I was having a very similar discussion with my department head about this point and using graphic organizers and note taking. Our conclusion was that all students need to be taught a variety of methods to ensure that they have a base line and then as they grow they will develop the method that works for them. (A similar experience we both had was that we were always required to do an outline format and note cards for papers and reports and it never made sense to either of us. Both of us would do the outline and the note cards AFTER our paper was done, just to be able to hand in the required components. Of course, now we understand outlines and note cards, but neither of us use them very often or at all.)
It was exciting for me to re-read this section while working at the high school level, as I’ve always been elementary before. One other thing I thought was a good reminder was to give students teacher-prepared notes to help them focus their learning and to provide a model of how they can organize content. Oh, and to remind students to Review and Revise their Notes.
Thank you so much for the link to Google "Wonder Wheel". I was not aware of this tool when looking for related links. I really enjoyed exploring social studies topics this evening.
I like Cornell notes because the format is very visual and is set up like a web page with columns. Students in all core classes are seeing a lot of Cornell notes and are familiar with the format. I think they (students and teachers) are getting better at focusing on the important topics in each subject matter. I would recommend these more visual note taking for all learners.
Assignment #3 Chapter 3-Summarizing and Note taking
C. I decided to practice note taking with my 5th grade reading groups. Although this is a skill that needs to be introduced and built on each year (like writing), 5th grade in particular needs to be more independent at this prior to going on to Middle School next year where summarizing and note taking are more crucial to their overall ability to learn and be successful. The students I work with struggle with basic vocabulary understanding and organizing information. Taking their learning to the next level of listening to new information, “digesting” it and producing what the important details are is very overwhelming for them. I decided to start with teacher prepared notes for them. This offers several supportive features for these students. It brings their anxiety levels down, so they are ready to learn, it gives them a visual of what “notes” look like, and gives them an example of what they could create themselves. I happen to be a very linear person, so I like lists and bullets, but I know not everyone’s brain process the same way. With this in mind I did a listed outline of information first for them to follow while I taught a lesson, then I gave them a web style page of notes with the same information for them to decide which one made the most sense to them. The next note taking practice was us doing note together—I used the overhead and they had their own blank paper. The third lesson was the students making their own notes, but I told them before hand we would all come together at the end to compare notes and discuss why we did/didn’t choose certain details—again to bring the anxiety levels down. All in all they were doing pretty well with their note taking by the last lesson. It takes a lot of practice over time to refine this skill, and personalize it, but they definitely have a good start!
D. Summarizing and note taking are two very challenging skills for a lot of students—especially those that struggle with learning new information to begin with. It takes high level thinking skills to listen, digest, and pull out key points. That is if the student understands what they are being taught in the first place! In order to help students be successful summarizers/note takers the information needs to be presented in a way that the students can comprehend first—this might include some visual aids or organizers like we saw in ch.2, or with some pre-taught vocabulary, connecting to background knowledge, etc. Then the students can work with note taking in a supportive way, with examples and modeling by the teacher. Learning to do note taking is like learning the writing process. It needs to be modeled often, and in a way that tells the students what is happening with our internal processing as well as what we are physically writing. I loved the various formats the book offered to help organize notes, as well as facilitate the processing of the information based on the content. These go way beyond the basic bullets, lists, and webs that I was familiar with, and I think they will be helpful with teaching new information as well.
C. This chapter fit in perfectly with the skills we were working on in reading this week: summarizing and note taking. Summarizing is included in one of our reading standards, as well, so it is a must teach. We (my teammate and I) used the combination notes technique with our advanced students. We felt that at this point in time, it was only appropriate to use with students that are strong in their reading/writing ability. We started off choosing two pages from our text on the stars and the universe. Together as a group, the students and I read through the information. Then we went back and reread a paragraph at a time and picked out the important information that we needed to keep. We drew a picture to go with it if appropriate. Finally, we went back through the notes we had taken and rewrote it as a summary paragraph. The next day, we had partners work together to go through the same process, this time on two pages that were about Galileo. This still was challenging for students and is a skill that we will need to continue to work on throughout the year, but I felt it was a good start. I can see modeling it and doing it together with my other reading groups as well so that they can start to see the process of note taking and summarizing.
D. Overall, I thought this chapter had many good ideas. Note taking and summarizing are skills that are so important, especially in college. Reading this chapter made me wish that I had been taught better how to take notes somewhere in life! I’ve just had to learn through trial and error on my own. The idea from note taking that I really liked was that “notes should be considered a work in progress.” Time should be allowed for students to go back to them and revise them, update them, and review them. By starting the process of teaching note taking now, in the lower grades, students will hopefully be more successful with them when they really need to use them. Step Up to Writing has a few lessons on summarizing that we used this week as well. We would like to continue to teach summarizing and make it a part of our weekly ritual with the units that we are reading. We now have many different strategies and frames that we can use to help us teach this strategy.
Summarizing and Note Taking
C. Summarizing is a skill that has been very difficult for third graders to understand. I have always taught it as “the most important” part and not retelling the entire story. We would read the backs of literature books to show examples and we practiced retelling a story orally. We usually worked on this skill as a class or in partners. This chapter, however, made me realize how important it is to “chunk” this skill into further pieces in order to take summarizing to the next level of thinking and allow students to summarize independently. Using the “rule-based” strategy, I would start with a very simple story (such as the Three Little Pigs) and use a document camera in order to actually delete and substitute from the story (as referred to in the chapter). This visual would be extremely important in understanding that you do not retell the entire story. This would also be a great way to show students how to use “their own words” in substituting terms to make it more understandable. The idea of creating a topic sentence if one is missing is also another way to explain the “big idea” or most important part of the story. With practice such as at the end of each story read in reading group time this skill could become natural for students and lead to a higher level of thinking about literature.
D. How has reading this affirmed some of what you already know about summarizing and note taking?/ what is something you now understand better?
This chapter made me realize that summarizing is important at every grade and for many subjects. It is a great way to review material and can be specifically taught at the lower levels. I did realize too, that I have been using many components of summarizing but now need to take it to the next level and be more intentional in explaining the parts of a summary (deleting, substituting etc…). The summary frames were extremely helpful and I can see how I could use many of them in different subjects for different reasons. The note taking section reaffirmed what I already knew: it MUST be explicitly taught and is crucial for the upper grades. It is an ongoing process that should be practiced each year.
How might you change how you use this summarizing in your classroom?
I will refer to this chapter in teaching summarizing and use the different frames. I will teach it using the “rule-based” strategy and practice summarizing more.
Hi Therese!
You're welcome. I think a little later timelines come up in another chapter and I was going to share the Google timeline feature with everyone. It's a handy little tool.
I'm excited to learn more about the Cornell Note taking method. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
-Mary :)
Hi Molly,
I agree, summarizing and note taking are very difficult skills for the students to master, especially so if students are struggling to work at grade level. However, as you stated these skills are essential to students academic success and need to be built upon every year.
I love that you started out with teacher prepared notes in a listed format but then also showed them a web style page of notes with the same content!
Yes, it does take a lot of time and practice to develop these skills but it’s so important and I’m sure the middle school teachers will truly appreciate your efforts because it should make their jobs easier!
Hello Renee,
I love when I am learning about something in my own professional development and it naturally fits with my curriculum at the same time. ☺ Great reminder to add pictures to note taking if appropriate!
As both you and Molly said, this is a good start. It may be that much of your work this year winds up being more at an introductory and practice level of work rather than mastery… but again, it can’t be said too much, it’s so important for today’s students to learn how to take notes and summarize, especially with the amount of information they have access to with the Internet.
Yeah! I hope you are able to incorporate summarizing into your regular plans.
Hi Christi,
As you said, it sounds like you have been teaching components of summarizing, but might be able to tweak it a little to make it more intentional. ☺ Your lesson with The Three Little Pigs using the document camera should be a great example to demonstrate summarizing. (I love document cameras!!!!) Yes, we agree that summarizing is vital at all grade levels and across the curriculum.
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