Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics.
Summarizing and analyzing texts can be challenging for all students, but multilingual students need additional help with the language of the task. This lesson guides students toward a clearer focus on their word choice and syntax in these forms of academic writing.
Inclusion
This lesson builds on standard best practices that help in classrooms with diverse populations, including activating background knowledge, moving from known to new concepts, and using groupwork to maximize student participation.
Objective
Students will use academic attributive verbs (explain, emphasize, mention, etc.), verb tense, and signal/transitional phrases appropriately in syntactically correct structures.
Key Terms
Summary, analysis, claim (thesis statement), reasons and evidence (support, grounds)
Timing
Students benefit most from instruction if the various steps in the process of summary and analysis are scaffolded. Since summarizing is a vital skill in writing, this lesson should come near the beginning of the semester in WR 112, as students will need to begin responding in writing to the texts that they read.
Conceptual Framework
When summarizing, students need to develop the ability to distinguish between what is essential and what can safely be omitted; to restate the author’s ideas in their own words both accurately and concisely; to identify the author’s claim (thesis statement) and note the major reasons and evidence (support and grounds) that the author provides; and to report the author’s beliefs as fairly and objectively as possible. Students need to replace generic verbs such as say and write with the appropriate academic attributive verbs in order to report precisely what the author intends to express, e.g. making a claim or assertion; expressing agreement; questioning or disagreeing; making recommendations; etc. Students also need to be reminded that it is typical to use present tense when summarizing a book, article, film, etc., even when the events they are discussing occurred in the past. Students need guidance in improving the cohesion of their writing by employing transitions to add further information; elaborate on an idea; provide examples; show cause and effect; provide comparison and contrast; concede a point; or make a conclusion.
When analyzing, students in WR 112 often lack critical reading and thinking skills. Some may automatically assume (or may have been taught to believe) that any article assigned by the instructor is “the truth.” For this reason, it would be best to assign a simple summary first in order to make sure that students can accurately report the author’s ideas, and then assign an analysis to help students develop their own response to the given issue; determine to what extent they agree or disagree with the author’s views; explain why, and how far, they agree or disagree; and defend their views with logical arguments and evidence. An analytical summary combines elements of both summary and analysis, and hence is a more complex and demanding assignment. It requires that students summarize the author’s views accurately; express their own views in response to that author; and distinguish very clearly between the views presented in the original source and their own perspective. Thus, a student needs to provide voice markers that indicate what the author reports about others; what the author himself/herself advocates; and what the student also believes. Some students may also need guidance in achieving stylistic balance in their summaries between paraphrase and verbatim quotes. Moreover, whether they paraphrase or quote, students need to be reminded to be alert to the dangers of plagiarism, whether from an overly close paraphrase or a quote that appears without quotation marks or citation.
Students at every level in the Writing Program need to develop and master the ability to summarize and analyze a text. These skills are introduced in WR 111 and WR 112, in which international students respond first to short articles from anthologies and later to a longer work of fiction or nonfiction. In WR 120, students write academic argument-and-analysis essays that require them to engage with multiple sources, while in WR 15x, students develop a major research project, for which these skills are critical.
Lesson
Genre Awareness
Ask the students to identify the genre of each type of article that they read, e.g. scientific, literary, journalistic, etc., and to note what differences in style and approach the various authors employ. Then, discuss with them to what extent the elements of each genre are appropriate to use in their own writing.
Metacognition
Because summary and analysis are vital skills that students will use repeatedly during the semester, it is a good idea to debrief the class after returning each assignment, asking the students to discuss strategies for improvement.
PART I: CLASS INTRODUCTION TO SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS
In order to produce a good summary and analysis, students need to pay attention to two levels: on a global level, they need to include all of the essential elements of a summary or analysis; and at the sentence level, they need to use appropriate vocabulary and accurate syntax, including correct verb tense and appropriate transitions.
- Check for prior knowledge of summary and analysis.
- Ask students to work together in small groups to explain what a summary is and list what elements are essential for a good summary. This handout on summary, or a variation of it, is something you could share with students after a discussion of summary. Similarly, ask students to explain what constitutes a good analysis. This handout on analysis, or a variation of it, is something you could share with students after a discussion of analysis.
- Ask students to brainstorm verbs to report the various ways that authors could express their views.
- Analyze models of summary and analysis with students; have students critique them, explaining why they are successful or unsuccessful, both in terms of content and language. Possible examples include essays from the WR journal, excerpts from articles assigned in class, and (anonymous) excerpts from student essays from previous semesters.
PART II: INDEPENDENT PRACTICE WITH SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS
- Make connections with students between class readings and the task at hand.
- Ask students to write a summary and analysis exercise that they will submit after peer-review and class discussion.
- Have students generate, and then apply, a checklist of essential elements of summary and analysis and of sample attributive verbs and transitions.
Variations and Follow-Ups
Suggested follow-ups
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Provide students with a scaffolded series of assignments, progressing from a small-stakes exercise on summary to a minor paper on summary to a major paper in the form of an analytical summary. Other, related types of assignments include: outline, reading journal, etc. Discuss the differences in these types of assignments, and return to the tasks of summary and analysis throughout the semester.
- Review the WR 120 Essential Lesson on summary and analysis to think about where students will be going with these concepts at higher levels.
Suggested flipped learning modules
Further Reading
For students
- Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. 4th ed., W.W. Norton, 2018.
They Say/I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein is an essential tool for developing summary and analysis skills. Chapter 1 emphasizes the importance of including the words of others. Chapters 2-3 provide templates for summarizing and quoting, respectively. Chapter 4 examines the main ways to respond to and analyze a text. Chapter 5 shows students how to distinguish clearly between their own ideas and those of the original author. Chapter 6 provides templates for acknowledging opposing ideas and responding to them effectively. Chapter 7 advises students on how to engage their readers and show them why the topic is important. Chapter 8 provides examples of transitions.
For instructors
- Turabian, Kate L. Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers. 5th ed., University of Chicago Press, 2019.
While Kate Turabian’s Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers is more complex, on the whole, than is needed for WR 112, Chapter 9 provides valuable insights on quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing sources that instructors can use to enhance their teaching at this level.
See all Writing Program Essential LessonsRemote Implementation of Essential Lesson Activities
