Writing with FRAMEs: The Summary

The purpose of this FRAME is to give students an outline in writing a summary. By incorporating sentence stems into the FRAME model, we are also providing differentiation and support to EL students, as well as our native speakers who need additional support. The addition of the Cloze Notes gives students the needed information about the skills they need to access, learn, and master to be able to skillfully write a summary, specifically paraphrasing and quoting.

I teach in one of the top Strategic Instructional Method (SIM) districts in Texas. This graphic organizer/writing FRAME aligns with:

TEKS: 7.5H, 7.6B, 7.6C, 7.6D, 7.6E, 7.8D

CCSS: ELA.Literacy.W.7.2; ELA.Literacy.W.7.3; ELA.Literacy.W.7.10; ELA.Literacy.W.8.2; ELA.Literacy.W.8.3; ELA.Literacy.W.8.10.

This FRAME was constructed for my 7^th grade classes in mixed classrooms which contained G/T, SPED, 504, ELLs, and on-level native English language students. It is based on the Strategic Instructional Method (SIM) FRAME Routine. The original use was to help guide students in writing a summary for an informational article on how sports impact our lives, but it has been subsequently used for a number of assignments. The FRAME is used for the first rough draft only, and students do all subsequent drafts on lined paper or using google docs. I do collect and grade the FRAME as a daily grade, with all drafts attached or referenced.

The first step in the FRAME is to have students Focus on the Key Topic by identifing the source text they are summarizing, and the author(s) of that text, as well as where the text can be found.

Next, students will Reveal the Main Ideas. Have your students identify the controlling, or main, idea of the text. This should be first quoted verbatim, and then you paraphrase it with your students. This becomes a critical step as we move into the Annotate Your Information section of the FRAME.

After identifying the controlling/main idea in the Reveal section of the FRAME, students will now go on to identify the controlling ideas of each supporting section. Again, I have students directly quote the text, then paraphrase it. This is a perfect opportunity to teach both quoting and paraphrasing using the “I do, We do, You do” model, where the teacher demonstrates one or two quotes and paraphrases, then the whole class identifies one or two quotes and paraphrases them together, then students do the remaining quotations and paraphrasing on their own. As a final step to the Annotate section, I have my students decide which quotes and paraphrases they will use in their summary, and to place a star next to them.

In this FRAME, I refer to the “M” as a “merge” for my scholars to bring all of their information together again, and to write their summary. Remind students that they are simply taking the information they have already identified, and putting it into a logical, streamlined, paragraph or two. With summaries I NEVER tell students it must be at least X paragraphs long, simply that it must be “in a well written summary”.

As with my other FRAMEs, the “E” is an extension and reflection. Because this FRAME focuses on summarizing another author’s work, I have added a Works Cited section.

You will find that the sentence stems on the PowerPoint are not editable. I feel that those that I have included were generic enough for use with any source text. If you are using the PowerPoint to guide your students, rather than a doc camera and paper copy, simply insert a text box wherever you need to in order to add your text.

I have included a student sample of a recently completed Summary FRAME, and while it has “Sammie Student” on top, the “Eddie” mentioned in the thumbnail is a real student in my classroom this year who reviewed and “approved” the Cloze Notes and FRAME before it was introduced. J

This lesson is appropriate for grades 7-8. This product is also a part of Writing with FRAMEs – A Bundle

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