are so integral they must be included in a summary?
11–12 Literature
Gist: Read for central ideas or multiple themes, noting how the different themes or ideas connect and complement each other to add complexity; then without analysis, summarize the text.
What big ideas or themes does the author include in the text?
How does the author’s treatment of these main ideas and themes add to their meaning throughout the text?
What details are so integral they must be included in the summary of it?
9–10 Informational Text
Gist: Read to discover the main idea, examining how the author introduces and develops this idea from beginning to end; then summarize but do not analyze the text.
What key idea plays an important role throughout the text?
What does the author say (or suggest) about this idea throughout the text?
What events or details contribute most at different junctures in the text?
What details are so integral to the text they must be included the summary?
11–12 Informational Text
Gist: Read to discover the main ideas, examining how the author treats these idea from beginning to end; then summarizing, without analysis, what the text says.
What key ideas play an important role throughout the text?
How does the author treat or develop these ideas throughout the text?
What events or details contribute most at different junctures throughout the text?
What details are so integral to the text they must be included the summary?
9–10 History/Social Studies
Gist: Read like a historian, economist, or social scientist, focusing on the dominant ideas and facts in both primary and secondary sources and providing a summary of how those key ideas and major events evolve over time in the text.
What ideas, details, and events does the author explore throughout the text?
Is this a primary or secondary source?
How do those events and ideas interact with each other to shape the meaning of the text?
How do these ideas and facts change in terms of their meaning, importance, or effect over the course of the text?
11–12 History/Social Studies
Gist: Read like a historian, economist, or social scientist, focusing on the dominant ideas and facts in both primary and secondary sources, and examining with precision how those facts and ideas relate to each other. Summarize these relationships, ideas, and events with accuracy.
What ideas, details, or events does the author explore—and how does the meaning or importance of these facts and ideas change from start to finish?
Is this a primary or secondary source?
What facts, events, or relationships must any summary be sure to include?
9–10 Science/Technical Subjects
Gist: Read like a scientist or engineer who must explain a complex processes, an event or idea, identifying the main ideas or conclusions. Summarize the content using precise, objective language.
What key ideas or conclusions does this text emphasize?
How does that process, phenomenon, or idea evolve over the course of the text?
What ideas or details are most essential to include in any summary of this text?
11–12 Science/Technical Subjects
Gist: Read like a scientist or engineer who must explain a complex process, events, or ideas, then identify the main ideas or conclusions. Using language that is concise and precise, write a paraphrase of those complex ideas and processes.
What key ideas or conclusions does this text emphasize?
What is the text saying about those ideas or conclusions?
What ideas or details must be included in any paraphrase of this text?
Common Core Reading Standard 2: What the Teacher Does
To have students “determine the central ideas and themes of a text,” do the following:
Ask students to generate all possible ideas and themes after skimming and scanning the text, then determine which of them the text most fully develops.
Tell students to figure out which words, phrases, or images recur throughout the text that might signal they are the central idea?
Have students consider what hints the title, subheadings, bold words, graphics, images, or captions offer as to the central ideas.
Complete a think-aloud with students when working with new or complex texts to model the questions you ask and mental moves you make as an experienced reader of this type of text to make sense of it.
To have students analyze the development of central ideas or themes, do the following:
Direct students to underline, label, or somehow code all the words, images, or other details related to the central ideas or themes throughout the text; then examine how their use evolves over the course of the text.
Provide students with sentence frames (“Early on the author says X about __________, then suggests Y, finally arguing Z about __________ by the end.”) or graphic organizers that help them map an idea from the beginning to the end of the text to better see how it develops (through word choice, imagery, figurative speech).
To have students provide an objective summary of the text, do the following:
Try having students summarize using different formats and modes: presentation slide, Tweets, lists, index cards, limits of 25 or 50 words, or an outline.
Develop with students a continuum of importance to help them learn
