Learning_Skills

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Purpose: Improve Writing Skills
GOAL
S t e p s t o Wr i t i n g a
C om p e t e n t S umma r y
 Carefully read the selection.
 Reread the text and mark
information that is relevant to
the reading purpose.
 Pause to connect ideas within
the text.
 Make a list of the most
important information in the
paragraph or section. Leave
out nonessential descriptions
and other supporting details.
 Try to write one sentence that
includes all of the relevant
information in the paragraph.
If the paragraph is long, you
may need to write two
sentences.
C o n s i d e r t h e F o l l o w i n g
wh e n Wr i t i n g a S umm a r y
 Use your own words, except
for important content words.
 Do not include your own ideas
or comments, such as “I
think…”
 Do not repeat ideas or change
the author’s meaning.
Wh e n s umm a r i z i n g t h e
wh o l e t e x t …
 Copy your summary sentences
into a paragraph and use
transitional language in order
to logically create
relationships between ideas.
 Read your paragraph. Check to
be sure that you have included
enough information so that
someone who has not read the
selection would understand
the main points. Your
summary should not be more
than one-fourth to one-third
the length of the original
passage.
What is AVID?
is a global nonprofit
organization that focuses on
research, teaching practices, and
methods to improve students
college readiness and to increase
schoolwide learning and
performance from elementary
through higher education. The
SummaryWriting method offered
here was created by AVID.
Summary Writing: AVID
Goals: Seek to understand your
reading and writing tasks.
Establish a purpose for reading to
help narrow your focus as you
make decisions about what you
should include in a summary.
The steps below describe how a
reader should summarize an
expository text. When we
summarizing purely informational
texts, we want to account for the
main ideas. Because informational
texts can be content heavy, we
need to read them carefully to
identify the most important
content since some information is
not important. Follow the steps
below to summarize this type of
reading and writing assignment.
Step 1: Seek to understand the
reading and writing tasks.
What are you expected to know
and do? What are you
summarizing?
Step 2: Carefully read the text.
Read the text once to get a
general idea of what the text is
about.
Step 3: Reread and mark the
text. Circle terms and underline
information relevant to the
reading and writing tasks.
tuk69tuk, tiStock/thinkstock
DoDEA Virtual High School (DVHS)
Strategy: Summary Writing