Free Essay Feedback: Summarizing
Ten free comments to use tomorrow!
Opinion: Summaries do not include opinions.
Series Introduction. Many teachers grade essays with amnesia, habitually rewriting the same feedback essay after essay, year after year. Stop writing comments by hand! Predictable mistakes become predictable feedback. Comment sheets are not exhaustive, but save your exhaustion. Keep shifting your starting point forward through typed feedback. Just remember: Comment sheets are not bills. Always pair spoken feedback with typed feedback.
Check out the posts “Stop Grading Essays with Amnesia” and “Need Essay Feedback? Hit ‘Print’”.
Description. Summaries introduce the text and present the main points without opinion in chronological order. Contrast summaries with responses or analyses (personal opinion). Compare summaries to synopses (big picture without spoilers), overviews (big picture with spoilers), and retellings (same length but paraphrased).
The first sentence should provide “cover information” (my word), including the title, author, medium, and one sentence overview. (Note: Understanding mediums deserves its own lesson!)
Watch for pacing errors. When students do not plan, they will spend the first 75% of the summary on the first 25% of the story. Comment for a follow up post!
Some asides. Writing with “SmartBrevity” feels difficult, but I had to point out two quick things:
1. I love the framework from the book They Say, I Say. The general writing progression moves from summaries to quotations to analyses to academic writing.
2. Remind students to write about the information on the cover. What did you read? Who wrote it? What is the medium? When looking to the cover itself, what is it about?
Comments. Steal and adjust the following comments for tomorrow’s class. Feel free to embed them on prompt sheets or create a free flowing comment sheet. (Disclaimer: Predicting every mistake would be absurd, but these should account for basic mistakes.)
Add the “cover information.” Never start with “The story was about…” What did you read? Summaries should begin with the title, author, medium, and big picture.
Add an overview. Summaries should begin with an overview or big picture of the text. State the general idea before starting with chronological details. Remember: Avoid big spoilers!
Correct the medium. Never confuse the medium. Football is not basketball, soccer is not tennis and so on. Short stories are not articles and memoirs are not poems. Confusing the medium is embarrassing!
Do not start with ‘in.’ This first sentence read “In the [story] [title] is about…” Remove the preposition in your first sentence. Many students change their thought mid-sentence and the result is confusing.
Arrange details chronologically. This response included out of order details. Review your main points and order them how they happened in the story.
Address all main points. While summaries differ in length, they should include the most important details. This summary left out key points. Doublecheck that you address the introduction, conflict, rising action, climax, and falling action/resolution.
Adjust the pacing. This summary addressed some main points in too much detail. Have a friend read your draft and find where your summary stalled. The first 75% should not be about the first 25% of the text!
Remove opinions. Summaries explain main points while responses or analyses explain opinions (like and dislike). Go back and remove your opinions for a more fair account of the text.
Remove filler signposts. When one event is explained after another, time order is implied. Go back and remove any filler signposts such as first, second, third, and so on.
Add a quotation. A good summary uses text evidence. Go back and find a representative quotation for a main character. Show something vital to the conflict and resolution, such as motive.
Remove quotations. This response had filler quotations, using far more than required. Go back and remove the non-essential, filler quotations.
Post Script. My comments themselves change and evolve as time goes on. I revised these from a 2020 grading sheet, but am still not wild about them.
