Writing Summaries

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Grade Level
High School
Subject
Literature
Length of Time
Homework Assignments
Description

The students will read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and take notes while they read. They will start with the first four chapters of the book and then stop so they can write a summary of what happened in the first four chapters. After that, they will continue with the next four chapters and write another summary. They will continue until they have completed the book.

Goals

To read smaller portions of the book and write summaries on what they read.
To develop concentration and reading comprehension
To learn about summaries
To write a summary over the book they read

Materials Needed

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Notebook Paper
Pens
Computer to type final draft

Procedure

For this lesson, the students will read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and will write short summaries after reading four chapters. They need to write down short specific notes such as names of characters while they read, so they can be prepared to write their summaries. They will start with the first four chapters of the book and then stop so they can write a summary of what happened in the first four chapters.

When they have completed their first summary, they can submit their papers to you for grading. While you are grading the papers, they can start reading the next four chapters and write another summary. After that, they will submit their next summaries and start the next four chapters. They will continue this process until they have completed their reading. After they have completed the book, they will write a plot summary as to what happened in the book.

This process will help them understand what they are reading and to help them with reading comprehension, which is important to develop.

Grading

You can grade the students on how well they wrote their papers and on their accuracy of their information. Besides grading them on the accuracy of their content, you can grade them on sentence structure, paragraph structure, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

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