The Reading Process – Lesson 4

Summary: GIST“Overtexting?”

ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS:Good readers know and use a variety of different strategies before, during, and after reading.

Good readers adapt and implement different strategies depending upon the type of text.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS: • What are the characteristics of a good summary?• Why is summary a useful skill to learn?• How do readers use summary strategies to synthesize

information to form better understandings of the world around us?

• What are some summarization strategies?

Warm up - Summary Do you think “summarizing” is a relatively

simple & easy task OR a complex & difficult task? On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a “very easy task” and 5 being a “very difficult task,” rank where you think the skill of summarizing should go.

Very easy task Neither difficult nor easy Very difficult task

(a child could do it) (shouldn’t cause undue stress) (requires a lot of effort)1 2 3 4 5

 

Summarizing Vocabulary

• Main idea• Summary• Supporting Detail• Graphic Organizer• “Gist”• Text structure

Movie trailer

• Remember the “preview of coming attractions” movie trailer we watched the other day when we talked about the good reader strategy “Preview”? Today we’re going to look at some “summaries” of that same movie preview.

• Look at the next 3 summaries and evaluate their effectiveness.

Movie Preview Summary

1.

2.

3.

Criteria for an effective summary

• Contains all important details/information• Contains no irrelevant information• Presents information in a logical order (the

same order as original)

Summary

• Summarizing is a critical AFTER READING good reader strategy

• Summarizing is a difficult cognitive skill• There are different strategies for summarizing

texts including – – GIST– Magnet Words– Can you think of others?

Summarizing strategies

• What kind of text – literary or nonliterary –is the movie review?

• One strategy that works for this kind of text is the GIST strategy

• What does the word “gist” mean?

GIST

• With the GIST strategy, readers divide the text into small, manageable chunks

• As readers read the smaller chunks, they– delete unnecessary information– underline (or circle) important words or phrases

• After determining what information is important, write a 20 word or less summary for each chunk.

GIST – movie preview

• Let’s try the GIST strategy with the movie review.

• After writing a GIST summary of the [2] chunks for the movie review, repeat the process, deleting less important information and underlining/circling information in the 1st summaries.

• Write one final 20 word (or less) GIST summary

sample GIST organizerOriginal Text(delete unnecessary/underline necessary)

First GIST reading(summarize underlined text)

Second GIST reading(summarize underlined text)

Final GIST summary(summarize underlined text)

Text “chunk” (¶ or column, etc.) -

Text “chunk”

Text “chunk”

Text “chunk”

Using GIST means 

summarizing increasingly 

smaller chunks of 

text

Remember: an effective summary -

• Contains all important details/information• Contains no irrelevant information• Presents information in a logical order (the

same order as original)• [for this lesson, keep final summary should be

less than 20 words long]

GIST: “Overtexting?”• Next we’re going to use the GIST strategy with the

article “Overtexting?” Because it’s a longer article, we will repeat the process of writing GIST summaries for increasingly smaller chunks of text.

• I will model how to write the first round of GIST summaries

• Together we will write the second round of GIST summaries as a class and/or with a partner

• Then you will write a final GIST summaries.

“Overtexting?” GIST organizerOriginal Text(delete unnecessary/underline necessary)

First GIST reading(summarize underlined text)

Second GIST reading(summarize underlined text)

Final GIST summary(summarize underlined text)

Section 1 (1st 7 ¶s)

Fake Relationships

Missing Context

A Hard Line

Defending English

Exit ticket/homework

Write your final GIST summary for “Overtexting?” via text-message (remember, your final summary statement must be 20 words or less). You may send your text message to my email address from your cell phone, OR you may write your message on a 3 X 5 card and turn it in.