powerful strategIES for BETTER UNDERSTANDING fiction and nonfiction TEXTS
Learning to Summarize Nonfiction Texts
Part One
Part Two
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Introduction
Take a quick moment to orient yourself to the topic. Click here to listen.
One of the first videos I created way back in the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic Era.
Drawing Inferences
is something left unsaid?
Asking this question is easy. Answering it can be pretty tricky. Practice helps. Readers begin to just feel when something more is going on in a section of text.
find clues
Searching the text for what we call "evidence" takes up most of a reader's energy and time. When you are well practiced, you develop a kind of radar for it.
Use what you know
Inferring won't happen if you don't have much stored in your long-term memory. If students need to know
Conclude or predict
Sometimes a strategy is fruitful; other times, it can be a bit of a dead end. Being right is not as important as being curious and engaged witht the reading.
My Blessings
No regrets. Just blessings. Anyone I meet who is actualized or enlightened (or whatever phrase you use to describe it) discusses certain ideas: humility, grateful feelings, staying present in the moment. I have learned that I am not a victim; I am a human learning what it means to be human in this world. It's full of joy as well as suffering. Embrace the lesson you are meant to learn and help others find the path to healing.
