a practice that combines your art with the science of recording and representing content. Reflect on your use of each strategy by filling out the “Strategy Reflection Log” on page 331.
Informal Outlines
In an informal outline, students use indentation to indicate the relative importance of ideas. They write big ideas at the left side of the paper, and indent and list details under the big idea to which they pertain. Students can also use numbering, bullets, or Roman numerals to organize information and display its relative importance. Figure 3.7 can help guide students in writing informal outlines.
Source: Marzano Research, 2016.
Figure 3.7: Informal outline template.
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Summaries
The teacher asks students to summarize content. Summarizing requires that students record the critical content from a text or lesson. Summarization techniques often require multiple complex cognitive processes and should be directly taught and modeled for students. Figure 3.8 is a scale that describes different phases of summarization mastery that teachers can use to measure students’ ability to summarize content.
Figure 3.8: Proficiency scale for summarization.
Consider using the following summarization activities in your classroom.
• Use summary frames to structure students’ early attempts at summarization. A summary frame is a series of questions that focus on important elements of the content. Students answer the questions and then use their responses to generate a summary. For example, in a summary frame for a short story, the teacher might create a series of questions that ask students to list the setting, characters, main conflict, and resolution of the story.
• Show students how supplementary information, such as headings, images, and graphs, in visual presentations of content and texts can help them decipher what the main idea and key details are.
• Practice basic summarizing techniques by asking students to describe the plot of a familiar movie or story in one or two sentences. Remind students that it is not necessary to retell the whole plot; they should simply try to tell listeners the most important information in their own words. For extra support, ask students to list the who, what, where, when, and why of the plot before giving their summary.
• Ask students to use a simple graphic organizer to find the main idea and key details from a short presentation or text. Using an organizer can help students understand what kind of information is important to highlight in a summary. For extra support, provide students with the main idea before the start of the lesson and have them fill in the key details.
• When students begin summarizing content, ask them to think about what they would tell someone who had missed class to help them understand the important ideas from a lesson. Have them practice what they would say with a partner. To encourage students to condense their summaries to only the most critical details, have partners time each other to see if they can summarize ideas in thirty seconds or less.
Pictorial Notes and Pictographs
The teacher asks students to use pictorial notes and pictographs to illustrate new content. Pictorial notes may serve as an accompaniment to written notes or, in some cases, as the primary note-taking form. Figure 3.9 is an example of pictorial notes.
Source: Marzano Research, 2016.
Figure 3.9: Example of pictorial notes.
Pictographs, like pictorial notes, may be accompanied by text for clarification. Pictographs often represent data in mathematical charts. In place of numbers, images indicate how much of a certain item each category has. Additionally, pictographs can be simple drawings that express words or phrases. Pictographs can use any kind of image for any amount, as long as there is a clear key that defines the symbols for the students and teacher.
Figure 3.10 is an example of a pictograph that compares the number of apples harvested from three orchards. Students could draw this kind of chart before completing a word problem that uses these data.
Source: Marzano Research, 2016.
Figure 3.10: Sample pictograph.
Combination Notes, Pictures, and Summaries
This strategy combines notes, pictures, and summaries. Students record written notes about the content in the left-hand column of a chart, pictographs or pictorial representations of the content in the right-hand column, and a summary of the content in the lower section of the chart. Figure 3.11 can guide students’ use of this strategy.
Source: Marzano Research, 2016.
Figure 3.11: Combination notes organizer.
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Graphic Organizers
Students record their knowledge using graphic organizers that correspond to specific patterns commonly found in information. Common text structures include sequence, description, comparison, causation, and problem/solution. Find graphic organizers for these structures in figures 3.12, 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, and 3.16 (pages 55–56). Teachers can combine nonlinguistic representations with other note-taking strategies (like combination notes, pictures, and summaries).
Source: Marzano Research, 2016.
Figure 3.12: Sequence graphic organizer.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.
