Suzanne+Woodward+Summer+2010

Level 6 Morning Class Summaries

By Suzanne Woodward

This summer, the morning level 6 class worked on summary writing. First, to continue using the lending library, students checked out a library book. They had to read it on their own, fill out a worksheet about their book, and then write a summary. Because we had just done an oral book report project last term, I decided to use the books to practice writing. Summary writing of articles can be difficult for students because they tend to copy from the article. They may not do this intentionally, but it is difficult for them to put things in their own words when the original sounds so much better. Also, if they have never written summaries or done any kind of research, they may not realize that they cannot simply copy. To get them to practice summary writing while they were reading their book, we discussed rules for writing summaries and then practiced writing a short summary before they started their book summaries. The rules were · Only include the basic facts · Omit details · Keep it short · No copying—use your own words · Opinions only in the conclusion

To practice, we watched a video from __60 Minutes__ (length: 20 minutes). I used a video which told a story about a young boy genius who was being pressured by his overbearing father. Then the students wrote a summary of what they had seen in the video. Since this story took place many years ago, they were curious as to what had happened to the boy. I found an update on the internet, but I would not show it to them until they had written their summaries so it wouldn’t affect their opinions. The students really wanted to express how they felt about the boy’s situation, so I allowed them to write their opinion briefly in the conclusion, but not in the body of the summary. Using a video as a source works well because they have no written material to copy from.

The next step was to write the summaries of the books they chose to read. First they had to fill out a worksheet that asked for the following information: · Title (or source), author, type of book, characters · List of main points · Whether or not they liked the book and if they would recommend it  This information became the three parts of their summaries. I checked their worksheets to see if they had answered everything and then they wrote their summaries.

Summarizing a book also worked well for avoiding plagiarizing because the blurb on the back was often too vague (not enough main points) and they couldn’t possibly copy the whole book. Since many read fiction, they were able to easily retell the story. Even the students who chose nonfiction books were able to come up with the main ideas. The only disadvantage to summarizing books is that I was not familiar with all the books, so did not always know if they had omitted key information. However, many of the books were ESL versions of classics or books other students had used in the oral book reports, so I was generally familiar with many of them. When I checked their worksheets, I was usually looking to see if their summaries made sense and did not suddenly talk about characters they had not previously mentioned. I think one of the things that really motivated them is that they could pick a book they were interested in. Once again, we had a wide range of topics from classics such as //Pride and Prejudice// and fictional detective stories to factual stories about memory.

Finally, after they had finished their summaries, I asked the students to tell the class about the story they had read. They could only use the top half of their worksheet with the title, author, and character names. They did a great job because they were able to remember for the most part what happened in the story and of course, whether or not they liked it. Everyone enjoyed hearing about the books the students chose.

Suzanne Woodward's morning ESL Level 6 class also read about and researched phobias. Pairs chose one phobia and made PowerPoint presentations about the phobia and what people with the phobia could do to overcome their particular fear.

These are the students' projects:

Fear of Being Touched media type="custom" key="6624131"

Fear of Heights media type="custom" key="6606723"

Fear of Cats media type="custom" key="6609757"

Fear of Flowers media type="custom" key="6609777"

Fear of Small Spaces media type="custom" key="6609783"

Fear of the Dark media type="custom" key="6609799"

Fear of Snakes media type="custom" key="6609809"

Fear of Spiders media type="custom" key="6609815"