Teaching of Summary Writing for Academic Purposes - Literature review Example

TEACHING OF SUMMARY (OR PRÉCIS) WRITING FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES Student’s Name Professor Course Date Teaching of Summary (Or Précis) Writing for Academic Purposes In current instructions, learners are usually asked to show that they understand key meanings, found in source texts through recording the gist in form of notes and then recreating them in a considerably short summary, depending simply on the original words (Hood 2008). The idea behind summary (précis) writing is to give, at a glance, an idea of the entire subject matter, without the trouble of going through the whole text. Such writing calls for greater precision, care, and intelligence on the part of the student. It calls for good practice. The summary or précis has to be short and to the point, the very essence of the matter, quite clear, meaningful, and intelligible and in correct and simple language (Dash & Dash 2007). The teaching of précis writing enables children to reduce the length of long texts, and gives them practice and help in seizing the gist of the text. It trains the students in attentive reading. The power of understanding the importance of a piece of writing , to note what is relevance and what is not, and to estimate the degree of relatedness to the main themes of the ideas and facts is an important ability and it is acquired with discussion and practices (Dash & Dash 2007). The ability to write an effective summary depends partly on the ability of the writer to identify the key sentences in a text, which encompass the main ideas by the writer (Sharma 2006). In writing effective summaries from source texts, students need to take account of language features such as indirect quotations, transitional words, paraphrasing, essential, and non-essential relative clauses/punctuation, and internal text structure. These features ensure that the summarized text is communicated clearly to the reader. Use of transitional words ensures a logical and smooth flow of ideas (Hinkel 2004). Indirect quotation and paraphrasing enables ideas to be restated in one own words as much as possible (Koneru 2008). The ability to generate appropriate content, to organize the content in a coherent manner, the form sentences that are syntactically correct, to link them to create coherent texts and the knowledge of a adequately wide range of syntactic and vocabulary patterns to express various concepts is important in summary writing-this demand a great deal from the writers. Coherence means the clear and logical interconnection of ideas in a text. A good précis should be coherent- there should be interrelated and logically connected (Rivard 2001). Within the summarized texts, authors have to use an internal structure to connect ideas in a logical coherent whole. Internal text structure usually varies from passage to passage, depending on the author’s purpose. Transitive verbs are used with a passive voice. Prefixes and suffices provide clues to the meanings of words in a summary- Prefixes come before the main part of the word. Paraphrasing is important to the writing of a précis. Paraphrasing is all about rewriting a sentence fully while maintaining all the meaning of its original text. The grammatical structure as well as vocabulary of the sentence is altered (Barass 2005). The most usual form of paraphrasing occurs when a writer reads another writer’s idea, discusses, and reflects on their meaning, and then later describes them in his or her own words, usually in a condensed form. Writers usually paraphrase the whole article or highlight one or more paragraphs using their own words. As Bailey (2003) pointed out, effective paraphrasing is important in academic writing for, among other things avoiding plagiarism. According to Bailey, a good paraphrase is significantly different from the wording of the original text without changing the meaning at all. He suggests that the three main techniques that the students should use to paraphrase are changing the word, changing the word order and changing the word class. The relative pronouns “which” and “that” are usually used in summary writing to refer non living things and are found in an essential clause. “That” is used to refer to people as well as other living things in an essential clause. “Which is used either as an essential or a non-essential clause, however it is not used to refer to the people. “ Who” is used only for people, however it is also used to refer to other living things and all pets. “Whom” is the objective form of “who” (object of a preposition, direct object) and is required in formal writing (Hinkel 2004). The purpose of a relative clause is to describe and identify the noun to which it refers. Commas are similar to parentheses with relative clauses and thus, indicate information, which is descriptive, but not required to identify the noun that the clause follows (Hinkel 2004). Since essential clauses mean those, which are necessary to identify the noun they follow, they are not usually set off with commas. Generally, when the name of a place or person is offered, the clause that usually follows is usually considered non-essential. Most précis are also written in indirect speech and there are written in pasts tense and in the third person (Riivard 2001). Hedges are used to withhold the writer’s full commitment of a proposition, for instance words such as perhaps, might, about and possible are used in summary writing. Boosters emphasize force or the writer certainty in a proposition, for instance words such as definitely, in fact and it is clear that. Attitude markers express the attitude of a writer towards a proposition, for instance I agree, unfortunately and surprisingly. Engagement markets are used to explicitly refer to or build a relationship with the reader, for instance note that, consider and you can see that (Koneru 2008). Self-mentions function to make explicit reference to the researcher/s, for instance I, my, we or our. A well-written précis is a practical substitute for the original text (Koneru 2008). The objective of a précis is to preserve the fundamental nature of the work in a way that is clear as well as concise. While writing a précis, writers use language features, which make is an effective piece of work. Part B The TexSense Summary Writing program By Questar Assessment, Inc is one of the programs, whose aim is to support the teaching of summary writing. The program affords teacher a systematic approach to instruction in summary writing and tips on the summarization process. The program also offers students practices in summary writing and offers follow up assessment. The program was developed mainly for learners in grade 4 to 8. The program integrates all the things that a teacher requires to integrate summary writing instruction as well as assessment into the content area curriculum and language arts effectively. It enables learners to be able to determine the important issues in the content they read. They also learn how to organize and present the information in a manner that is complete, coherent and to the point. Students usually learn various things when their teachers use the program to teach them how to write summaries. They learn to read texts and assess what it is about, categorize the most critical information, organize the information, and represent the texts in their own words, in a manner that the reader can easily understand- that is in a complete, concise, and coherent manner. The students also learn to use the set English conventions while writing. In addition to teaching students to write summaries, it also offers them important guidelines in evaluating the students work and monitoring their progress. The program covers four components, which are purchased separately, but they are more effective while used jointly: Student response forms, classroom assessment materials, the Rater’s Guide and the Teacher Resource Manual, which are all available through Questar. The reproducible materials offered by the program include: Ten passages of text, some expository, some narrative, sample student summaries, passage information sheets that outline important information in every passage, graphic organizers, and varied student activity handouts. The other important instruction component of this program is the teacher resource manual. It offers all the background activities, information as well as materials needed for integrating summary writing into the content area curriculum and language arts. The main assertion of this program is that instruction should be informed by assessment. The Rater’s Guide assists the teacher to go through the evaluation process through explaining the analytic and holistic rating systems. Every anchor point is explicated thoroughly and it is exemplified comprehensively and illustrated by numerous summaries. The TextSense rating rubrics and sheers, which are found in the Rater’s Guide, enable teachers to score summaries easily, quickly and consistently. This is an important complement to the Teacher’s Resource guidebook. The other component of the program, classroom assessment material is an important element in the program. Every set has two reproducible text passages, analysis of the information in every passage as well as a number of anchor summaries. Currently, the classroom assessment materials are available at two levels: Level 3 and Level 2. The assessment materials for level 2 are recommended for student in grade 4-5. Set A in this level consists of 2 narratives (passages) with 44-48 DRP units. Set B in this level consists of 2 expository (passages) with 46-51 DRP units. The assessment materials for level 3 are recommended for students in grades 6-8. Set A in this level consists of 1 narrative or 1 expository with 48-53 units. Set B in this level consists of 2 expository with 58-21 units. The student response forms (sold in packages of 30) offer the students a formal evaluation of the product and process of summary writing. The forms have clearly labelled area for drafts, prewriting, and final version and printed summary writing guidelines. The forms can be used with all the passages from the Rater’s Guide, Teacher’s Resource Manual or the classroom assessment materials or with other texts that the teacher chooses. The text passages themselves are not included in the forms. All the four components of this program- Student response forms, classroom assessment materials, the Rater’s Guide and the Teacher Resource Manual, can be ordered online through Questar. Part C Summary writing is a great activity, which can benefit both the teacher and students (Rivard 2001). Scaffolding summary writing can be used to support students to write summaries, offering them a chance for synthesizing what they read in texts and sort out the ideas using their own words. It is also a great way of assessing the student comprehension of the materials. The right scaffolding can enable students to rise to the activity level and come out stronger (Dollins 2011). The scaffolding process described below for summary writing covers all the four language skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. The student capability to write a concise, tight and precise précis of a text is an important entry point to other writing genres, particularly analytical and technical writing (Rivard 2001). After scaffolding, students should be able to communicate the accurate information in an effective way and learn the essential details and main idea through a summary, which is a lot shorter than the original. The first step in summary writing should be to read out the materials to be summarized. This can be done in a number of ways, students can read individually, read in partners or read as a group. For most support, reading should be done in an interactive read- aloud manner. The teacher should read the materials to the students. Alternatively, the teacher can distribute copies of short text (about one and a half) pages. The text should then be separated into various parts, which correspond to coherent summary points, denoted by a line as well as the word “STOP” along the margins. The teacher should then explain the interaction between the text and schemata. At every stop point, the gist of a text should be discussed, vocabularies clarified and one summary sentence agreed upon (Marzano, 2010). This cycle should be repeated until the whole text is covered. The number of sentences that the learners generate should serve as a summary for long texts. At the end of the text, learners should have noted down a number of sentences or a short précis of the whole text. The next step should entail introducing the text to be covered, building previous information, and discussing the important vocabulary. The teacher should lead the first lines of the text aloud as the students read silently. The teacher should guide class discussion on the significant information from the text and write the student ideas on the board. The teacher should then lead discussions on ways to create ideas into a sentence, enabling learners to share the ideas and discuss the ideas to create a concise, precise, and accurate sentence. The teacher should note down the sentence that has been agreed upon by the students on the board and label it as number 1. The students should then read aloud the second part, follow the same cycle, and number the sentence agreed upon as number 2. This cycle should be repeated until the text is finished. This should be followed by a discussion of the way the class has reduced the original text into a shorter sentences. The sentences should then be reread to check for meaning and all necessary changes made so that the condensed text can serve as a concise written summary. The teacher should use different visual expressions, gestures, and voices to facilitate the understanding of the meaning of the passage (Furtado & Johnson 2010). During this process, the teacher should stop at key moments throughout the entire passage to provide explanations and to check whether the students understand the text. After reading aloud the text, the student should read the materials individually or in pairs to solidify their comprehension of the text. To enhance the summary writing process, the teacher can make use of graphic organizers to help organize the graphics. This can assist the students to get their ideas on to the paper in an organized and clear manner (Gallavan & Kottler 2007). Students can do this in pairs or in small groups in order to have each other support. The other important that should be considered during the exercise is language experience. Language experience is an important way of getting the student to talk whilst also assisting them to construct a summary with the teacher and classmates support. The outcome is a good example to the students of the way that a summary should be like. All students create the summary, hence they can take pride in what they have accomplished together, and in the future, they will have self-confidence to do it individually. During the activity, the teacher should call on individuals or ask for volunteers. It is highly likely that some students will make mistakes while relating with various ideas and hence the teacher should model Standard English whereas the students give their sentences. After reading the text and organizing the ideas using the graphic organizer and composing a group summary, which acts as a good example for the students, students should write a summary. The last step and most important should be to share. The teacher should have each student read it to another student or to the whole class and allow other students to comment after reading. The idea of scaffolding is embedded in the learning and teaching process of summary writing in this case. Hyland (2003) argued that Vygotsky laid emphasis on an interactive teamwork between the teachers and the students, with the teacher assuming a commanding task to support or scaffold the students as they seek to attain their potential performance level. According to Hammond and Gibbons (2001), scaffolding is short-term support that the teacher offers the learners to undertake assignments or develop comprehension of the issue in order for the student to be able to accomplish the tasks by themselves. The scaffolding process in summary writing can improve the students’ ability to write to identify the key sentences in a text, which encompass the main ideas by the writer (Dollins 2011). They can identify the important information and rephrase it using their own words to generate the same meaning as the writer. In the effectively summarized work, all statements are accurate and verified by the text, words are not directly taken from the text, summary comprises of key ideas and key details only and there no excess grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Reference List Bailey, S 2003, Academic Writing: a practical guide for students, RoutledgeFalmer, London. Barass, R 2005, Students must write: a guide to better writing in coursework and examinations, Routledge, Milton Park, Abingdon. Dash, N & Dash, M 2007, Teaching English as an Additional Language, Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd, New Delhi Dollins, C 2011, Comprehending Expository Texts: Scaffolding students through writing summaries, California Reader, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 22-28 Furtado, L & Johnson, L 2010, Enhancing Summarization Skills Using Twin Texts: Instruction in Narrative and Expository Text Structures, Reading Matrix: An International Online Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, pp.271-281 Gallavan, N & Kottler, E 2007, Eight types of graphic organizers for empowering social studies students and teachers, The Social Studies, vol. 98, no. 3, pp. 117-23. Hammond, J & Gibbons, P 2001, What is scaffolding? In J. Hammond (Ed.), Scaffolding: Teaching and learning in language and literacy education (pp. 1-14), Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown, New South Wales. Hinkel, E 2004, Teaching Academic ESL writing: Practical Techniques in Vocabulary and Grammar, Lawrence Erlbaum Associate Inc Publishers, Mahwah, NJ. Hyland, K 2003, Genre-based pedagogies: A social response to process, Journal of Second Language Writing, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 17-29. Koneru, A 2008, Professional Communication, Tata McGraw-Hill Educations, New Delhi. Marzano, R 2010, Summarizing to comprehend, Educational Leadership, vol. 67, no. 6, pp. 83-84. Rivard, L 2001, Summary writing: A multi-grade study of French immersion and Francophone secondary students, Language, Culture and Curriculum, vol. 14, pp. 171–186. Sharma, S 2006, A Textbook of Professional communication skills and ESP for Engineers and Professionals, Sarup & Sons, New Delhi. Susan, H 2008, Summary writing in academic contexts: Implicating meaning in processes of change, Linguistics and Education, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 351-365. 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