Teaching Fourth: Summarizing with Story Elements

Summarizing is a brief account of the main points of a story. On the surface this seems simple, but for many students, summarizing is a challenge. Modeling and practice is needed to help students understand how to determine which points are important and need to be included in a summary.

Summarizing Strategies

One way to help students learn to summarize is to give them opportunities to summarize in different ways. Different strategies include:

Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then
Beginning, Middle, End
Summarizing each Story Element

Helping students to identify and write about story elements is a great way to help students learn to identify important information for writing a good summary.

Some Fiction Story Elements Include:

Character-who the story is about
Setting-when and where the story takes place
Problem or Conflict-the challenge or challenges the main character faces
Solution or Resolution-how the problem is solved
Theme-the message or lesson in the story

Summarizing with Story Elements

A fun way to get your students writing about story elements is my Heart Reading Response Flibook. Understanding story elements helps students to learn to summarize important information. This fun flipbook can be used with almost any fiction picture book or chapter book. (Two fiction flipbooks as well as a nonfiction version is included.) To make this even more fun, printable letters and ideas to create this eye-popping bulletin board are included. Your students will love seeing their work displayed on this fun bulletin board!