Gnomewardbound Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Do you think that having 14 year olds write a chapter summary for each chapter once we read the chapter aloud is too much? They don't do much writing except from their grammar and math books. Just realized I overused "chapter". Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 No. For longer nonfiction texts my boys are required to summarize each chapter orally. IF you are talking about fictional literature then I wouldn't do it for every book that they read, but I'd do it for several and work my way up to doing about 40 or 50% of the books that we read for academic purposes. I encourage the boys to create their own study aids as much as possible and as they get bigger and more capable my encouragements will gradually become requirements. I feel that by 9th grade, they should be summarizing in almost all of of their subjects/classes. This makes study/revision/review much simpler and it creates a useful and handy resource. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Well, what is the purpose of a written chapter review? If it is to study later, great. If it is for writing, is it going to serve the purpose you want it to? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haiku Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 I think that would make reading awfully tedious. If you simply are trying to give writing assignments, I would occasionally have them write chapter summaries but also research papers, essays, short stories, etc. I wouldn't turn reading a book into an exercise in endless summarizing. No fun. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Targhee Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Yes. Teach various note taking strategies, and do require practice in those strategies on some chapters (changing which book you are taking notes from). Assign *meaningful* writing tasks less frequently. In 9th grade they should be beyond summarizing, and use this strategy only as a tool of review/note taking or in preparation for synthesizing a more complex piece of writing. Summarizing, outlining, using a highlighter system/colored pens, diagramming, Cornell notes, mind mapping... These are all legitimate note taking strategies that can be utilized in various settings and various learners, so I wouldn't confine your student to writing a summary. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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