30-Second Summary

Type of Activity:

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Subject Area and Grade Span: Any Subject, Grades 9-12

What it is:

The purpose of the 30-Second Summary is to encourage academic vocabulary, attention to sentence structure, summarizing of information and confident reporting to the class. Students and teachers develop the habit of regularly using language specific to their content in written and oral classroom work. Non-specific language or generalizations are discouraged. Students think carefully using relevant vocabulary in order to answer a question, report on a reading, or report on a discussion topic. Students need to carefully read and review the content in order to do the 30-Second Summary. They prepare to stand and share their answer or report in 30 seconds or less. Teachers model the strategy and model use of specific language in their own written and oral work. The time constraint simply adds an element that encourages accurate summarizing and rehearsal with a partner before the 30-Second Summary. This practice can be utilized in all content areas.

What it looks like:

Teacher Model:

Teacher reads a page or two of content material. Students have copies.
Teacher models writing a quick generic sentence about the topic (see Sample).
Model writing a detailed sentence or two about the same topic. First, think aloud your own review of the content in order to write sentences that provide detail. Talk about summarizing and your desire to provide information to an audience who did not read the content. Conduct a think-aloud as you write: refer to the content material pointing out your notes, or highlighting as you review the text. Point out the academic language and sentence structure in the text as you think aloud and write your sentences.
Model sharing your sentences with your partner and then rehearsing with a partner and presenting the sentences to the class in a 30 second stand-up. Completion of the reading of the detail sentences in less then 30 seconds is fine as long as the sentences are detailed and relevant to the topic.
Have the sentences written on a transparency and ask students to compare and contrast the generic and the detail sentences. Point out language such as accordingly, significantly, tracked, describing how these words add to your understanding of the content.
Repeat the model using the same text base, or a continuation of the article or text content, having students suggest the generic sentence and then compose the detail sentences. Write a sample of student’s sentences on a transparency and ask students to compare the generic and detail sentences. Point out language as you did in your model.

Students practice in pairs:

Have students follow the model with a partner, after reading a new text or continuation, writing a generic sentence and then one or two detail sentences. Remind them to review the content. Partners build and refine their sentences and rehearse doing a 30-second summary. Have partners share with 2 or 3 other partner groups. Remind them of how you rehearsed.
Have one partnership from each group share.
Discuss and point out detail language, sentence structure, and academic language.
Collect the partner work and provide comments to students.
Practice often and, as students improve, you can drop the composing of the generic sentence and concentrate on the summary sentences.

Sample: After reading an article about a study involving students who take music lessons - Model:

Generic sentence: Music lessons help learning.
Detail sentences: According to the 1999 Federal Education study titled Champions of Change –The Impact of the Arts on Learning, high school students who take music lessons scored significantly higher on math tests by the 12^th grade. The study tracked more than 25,000 students for 10 years.

Example text for you to use:
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060104/Note2.asp (outside link)
From Mammoth to Modern Elephant by Emily Sohn in Science News for Kids, January 4, 2006.

How you know it’s working:

Students regularly use academic vocabulary.
Students attend to sentence structure in oral and written work.
Students demonstrate an ability to summarize information and are confident reporting to the class.
Students are evaluated on a teacher-made rubric based on the quality of the academic language and the summary.

Things to consider:

Work with the administration, or department chairs to incorporate practices, such as this one, to draw attention to and emphasize the use of academic language across the curriculum and as a regular practice across the school (see other categories on this site).
Introduce at a staff or department meeting and continue to reference at future staff meetings by showing and discussing student work.
Make use of the overhead or document-camera to display the text as you demonstrate reading it and demonstrate thinking aloud for the students. Also use document-camera to discuss student work.
Provide sample lessons to colleagues according to grade level – such as selections from textbooks.
Provide sentence frames that incorporate transition words for summarizing using academic, precise language.
As students improve, remind them to consider their language across the curriculum all day long. Work with fellow teachers to continuously model detailed response with student rehearsal, and then to have the expectation of specific language in student writing and oral responses.
Continue to point out and discuss academic language and its importance in all content areas.
As a general practice, have students work with a partner and rehearse their responses.
Evaluate students positively, and encourage them to build upon their use of specific or detail language.
The 30-Second Summary can become a regular practice and expectation in the classroom and across the school.

Download Document:

Download 30-Second Summary Rubric (application/pdf)

References:

Gibbons, P. (1998). Classroom talk and the learning of new registers in a second language. Language and Education, Vol. 12 No.12, 99-118.
http://www.channelviewpublications.net/le/012/0099/le0120099.pdf (outside link)
This study stresses using a linguistically-based sequence of tasks with regular class content in order for ELL students and EOL students to learn linguistic structures. Construction of new curriculum knowledge must go hand in hand with the development of the second language. The premise is: Students need knowledge of the content in order to learn the linguistic structures so that they can speak and write about the content. Students need support in syntactic processing as well as semantic processing.

Marzano, R. J., et al. (2001). Classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
This chapter provides frames to explicitly teach two of the most useful academic skills students can have. A summary frame is a series of questions that the teacher provides to students to highlight the critical elements for specific types of information. The chapter also provides research and theory on summarizing and note-taking.