Retelling and Summarizing

1.  Is this a skill that I need to spend time on?

     After talking with other librarians in my district, I found out that this skill was one that students sometimes find the most difficult.  They are not sure what the most important parts of the story are to retell.  So, we spent time going over the retelling rope to review what we needed to include.  After introducing and doing a few practice questions, I could tell that students did need extra work with this skill.

2.  Is technology the best way to reach middle school students?
   
     All of the other librarians in my district use technology on a daily basis with their middle school students.  Some are teaching them how to do prezis.  Others are teaching them how to use word. While another is creating book talks.  I plan to incorporate more technology into my middle school lessons.

3.  Do I need to incorporate more technology with younger students?

     Most of the librarians in my district agree that this was a tough question.  Many students are not confident enough or experienced enough to use technology on their own.  However, as a group, students seem to benefit from the use of more hands-on tools like technology.  I hope to incorporate more technology with my younger students as well.

This week I introduced the concept of retelling and summarizing to my students K-8.  For the elementary students, we used a retelling rope (which reviews all of the basic story elements that we have already discussed: character, setting, plot, beginning, middle, end, problem, and solution).  After reviewing the retelling rope, I read aloud the book The Big Ugly Monster and the Stone Rabbit by Chris Wormell.  After reading the story, we made a foldable about the B.M.E. (Beginning, Middle, and End).  Then we sang the Parts of a Story song that I found on YouTube.  I thought that 4th graders would think that the song was dumb, but they seemed to love it more than the younger students.
In my junior high classes, we have been researching Edgar Allan Poe per request of their Reading teachers.  We started by watching a brainpop cartoon about his life.  I have read the Tell-Tale Heart and the Raven to them to get them intrigued and to give them some examples of how he wrote.  Then, I sent them on a webquest to find information about specific questions that I wanted them to answer about him.  This week, we are completing our research.  I couldn't think of a better way to retell or summarize the information that they found about him other then by writing an obituary.  I gave them an example to follow and a rubric to follow for grading purposes.  Next week... we start making prezis!
Overall, I'm very pleased with how the skill for this week has gone.  I'm really starting to enjoy the library more and more and finding new ideas to get students interested in reading.  I still find that junior high (especially 7th and 8th grade) is my biggest challenge!