Chapter 14 page 302
Reflecting on Students’ Thinking
Two sixth-grade teachers have been working to teach their students to summarize textbook passages that
they are reading. Emily Thompson, the first teacher, has had only fair success. Many of her students are still
struggling to generate good summaries. Ruth Brooks, the second teacher, has been very successful; all of
her students have shown very strong improvement in summarization and are summarizing very well.
The six short dialogs below show Emily and Ruth interacting with students in their classes. Analyze
what the two teachers and their students say. How do the two teachers’ questions and statements differ?
How do the two teachers’ students differ in what they say? How can these differences explain why Ruth’s
students are learning to summarize more effectively?
Dialogues in Emily Thompson’s class:
A. Emily is leading a class discussion about a text on global warming.
Teacher: Would you summarize these three paragraphs for us? Jenny?
Jenny: Um... I’d say...it’s saying that global warming is going to be hard to solve, because it’s easy
for countries to be selfish and hope that other countries will solve the problem.
Teacher: That’s a good summary. Jacob, would you do the next section?
Jacob: It’s about global warming, too. About actions on global warming.
Teacher: That’s a very good start. But we should be a little more specific. How about this: We can
address global warming by cutting down on various emissions of carbon dioxide. Can you
see why that is a little clearer?
Jacob: Yeah.
B. Emily is working individually with another student, Amanda, as she summarizes a newspaper
article she has read.
Teacher: What is your summary for this article?
Yulissa: The school district is facing a big budget problem, and they may even have to stop hiring new
teachers. They can also save money by cutting out extra activities like sports.
Teacher: Very good! That’s a really good summary of this article.
Dialogues in Ruth Brooks’s class:
C. From a class discussion about a text on global warming.
Teacher: Let’s summarize these three paragraphs. Everyone think about it for a minute.....
Teacher: Amanda, what is your summary?
Amanda: Maybe.... Global warming is a hard problem because every country is motivated to be selfish.
Teacher: How did you come up with that summary?
Amanda: Well....the first sentence was kind of like a topic sentence for the first paragraph. It said that
global warming will be hard to solve.
Teacher: You also said that countries will be motivated to be selfish. Why is that part of the summary?
Amanda: It’s because it listed several examples of how countries have been selfish. It seemed like all
together, it was saying generally that they were selfish.
Teacher: OK—that’s a good reason. You used a topic sentence for part of your summary, and you
generalized from several examples to get another part of your summary.
B. Ruth is working individually with a student on an assignment in which the students are summarizing a
newspaper article they have chosen.
Teacher: How have you summarized this one?
Alex: This is about our school. It says that principal is planning after-school programs to help
students do better on the tests.
Teacher: Tell me how you came up with that as a summary.
Alex: It starts by saying that the school needs to do better on its state test scores. That’s what the
first paragraph is about.
Teacher: Why did you decide not to include that in your summary?