The previous post introduced the idea of summary writing. It showed students how to structure a summary paragraph using a process I call FACT. The challenge for students was to listen to an NPR podcast and write a one paragraph summary.
Sample Summary Paragraph
Here is a sample which can help English students understand the structure of a summary paragraph.
In this podcast, scientists asked a question: can people learn new things while sleeping? To answer the question, scientists did a two-part experiment. First, scientists asked volunteers to sleep. While some people were sleeping, scientists sprayed a nice smell and played a high sound. Other people got a bad smell and a low sound. While sleeping, the people with a nice smell took a deep breath. People who had a bad smell took a small breath. Second, when the people were awake, different sounds were played. People who had a high sound while sleeping took a deep breath. People who had a low sound took a small breath. This experiment shows that people can learn basic things while sleeping. Later, scientists want to see if people can learn difficult things while sleeping.
Editing Exercises
Writing well is hard. One skill that can help ESL students learn to write well is editing. When they learn to see the mistakes, students can fix their own errors.
Here are two pages of editing exercises. Read the paragraph, circle the mistakes then rewrite the paragraph.
If you want to see the corrected text, the answers are here.