Fun Summarising Activity for Group Work

This fun activity is best used when practicing how to write a summary for a fictional text. Students will pretend they have been hired on as a social media specialist with SUMitUP, a successful global media company. Their new role involves reading pieces of text and posting catchy summaries on one of SUMitUP’s social media platforms. The goal is to get as many followers as possible interested in reading the original text!

 Students will be rotating through a series of stations. At each station, they will be reading a short piece of text and writing a 2-3 sentence summary that is less than 50 words. Finally, they will make a hashtag for each summary. The hashtag needs to be one of the big ideas from the text.

Practice Summarising a Fictional Text

Summarising a fictional text is a crucial skill that enhances comprehension, analytical thinking, and writing proficiency. With this activity encourage students to read actively, fully engage with the text and take notes while reading to identify key characters, major events, and the central theme. If you provide them with the black and white version of this resource – they can highlight each important bit of information.

Once, they’ve read the short passage on each task card and determined the main points- they can get cracking on their social media post that summarises the story in a sentence or two!

Download and Get Summarising Today!

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to choose between the PDF or Google Slides version of this resource, or the colour and black and white version (both are included in the Google Slide download). A recording sheet and answer key are also included with this download.

Print on cardstock for added durability and longevity. Place all pieces in a folder or large envelope for easy access.

This resource was created by Jennifer Hall, a Teach Starter Collaborator. 

Summarising Activities for the Classroom

Don’t stop there! We’ve got more summarising activities to help you cut down on lesson planning time:  

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Summarising a Story Graphic Organisers

Use these graphic organisers to help students when summarising a story.

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Summarising Poster Set

Learn about how to effectively summarise a piece of text with this classroom poster set.

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Colour-Coding Summarising Fiction Text Worksheets

Practise summarising small fiction texts with this fun colour-coding set of worksheets.