Some students may find it easier to grasp the concepts of a plot summary by thinking of a familiar film rather than a story or novel. For example, ask them to pretend that they are explaining the plot of the movie "Titanic" to a friend who has never seen it; point out that they wouldn’t recount every detail of the almost three-hour-long movie but that they should focus on the big ideas. Students could start with the characters and a little about what happens to them. For example: "Jack, an artist, and Rose, a socialite, fall in love on the maiden voyage of the doomed ship Titanic." Explain that it’s important to include the ending in a summary so the reader fully understands the complete story. "In the end, Rose lives, but Jack dies when the ship sinks."
Encourage students to think about who, what, when and where. This will help them learn how to include important details such as characters and setting rather than just focusing on what happened. For example, if students are trying to write a plot summary about "Little Red Riding Hood," they would need to include the four Ws in their summary: who -- the girl, the wolf and her grandmother; what -- the wolf pretends to be the grandmother; when -- during the girl's visit; and where -- at the grandmother's house. By covering all four areas, students are more likely to provide a complete summary rather than just one aspect. Teach students to touch briefly on why events occurred, as readers don’t need all the details of the story.
Help students take a step-by-step approach to summarization. Teach them to read through the text once and then read through it again while underlining or highlighting the big ideas, such as key words or sentences. Ask them to write sentences in their own words capturing those big ideas. Then help them organize the information so that it makes sense logically, such as in chronological order or as events unfolded in the book. For instance, if they were to summarize the movie "Titanic," they wouldn't want to start with the ship's sinking and then discuss that Rose and Jack met on the ship and fell in love; though both events are important to the plot, it make more sense to write about them in the order in which they occurred in the film.
Help students revise. Ask them to refer back to their notebook where they wrote the big ideas and key words. Questions students should ask themselves include: are all the important events and characters covered in the summary? Are there any unnecessary details in the summary that can be deleted? For example, students may have included in their summary about "Little Red Riding Hood" that the Big Bad Wolf said, "My, what big eyes you have" -- but the reader doesn't need to know that to understand the overall plot. Teach students to trim the summary by eliminating unnecessary information.
Students can also learn to revise by reading their completed summaries to a classmate. Have them ask their partners whether they have just enough information to understand the plot, too much or not enough. This can help students learn what information a reader needs to understand a plot summary and help them see where they may need to revise.