Fun Summarizing 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 Summarizing a Fictional Text

Summarizing 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 Summarizing Today!

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to choose between the PDF or Google Slides version of this resource, or the color 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 teacher in North Carolina and Teach Starter Collaborator. 

Summarizing Activities for the Classroom

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

teaching resource

S.W.B.S.T. Summarizing Graphic Organizer

Use this printable SWBST strategy graphic organizer with students to write a summary for a fictional piece of text.

teaching resource

Reading Response Template – Summarizing

Practice summarizing a piece of text with this reading response template.