We live in a world of burgeoning information. According to Internet Live Stats, there are well over a billion websites on the Internet, a figure that increases by the second. While many of these aren’t active, consider this statistic: Google serves more than 3.5 billion searches per day, equivalent to 40,000 searches every second! The amount of information that travels over the web is now measured in petabytes, exabytes, and zettabytes; and visual aids for comprehending such unimaginable numbers involve comparisons with stacks of disks reaching to the Moon and back again. How do we responsibly equip students with the skills they need to navigate this information tsunami? According to IEW’s founder and director, Andrew Pudewa, one of the first steps in the process is to acquire the skills of limiting and summarizing. IEW’s Unit 4, Summarizing a Reference, explains our simple method for achieving this goal. Tell students to choose some, but not all, of the important facts in a source text. Some is the key word here, because according to Mr. Pudewa, summarize is misspelled. It should actually be spelled some-a-rize. Why? Kids think summarizing means you have to say everything the article says, but in less space. They see the sum in summarize and connect it to their math knowledge. By teaching the skill of limiting (just as we expect them to choose just three words to remember an idea when creating key word outlines), we expect them to choose only a few facts—the ones they think are especially â€Å"important, interesting, or relevan t.† The point of the exercise is to force them to choose, to make decisions, to think. After selecting a few significant facts from a longer source, students retell the information in their own words and write a summary, adding topic/clincher sentences. Isn’t this plagiarism? No. The subject content is generally common knowledge, and the purpose of the summary is to check for comprehension. Writing summaries also allows the students to practice â€Å"how to say† something rather than requiring them to come up with â€Å"what to say.† When students are ready, we teach them to cite their sources and how to evaluate their sources for reliability. Even college professors agree they want students who know how to summarize. In â€Å"A Swing Towards Sanity,† a 2012 article quoting educational researchers from the University of Southern California, Andrew writes: Rightly, Tierney and Relles point out that â€Å"critical thinking in and of itself is not a precursor to good writing.† Writing is about putting ideas into words, which â€Å"crucially involves the ability to summarize material, a more concrete and therefore more teachable skill.† (I wonder if my coworkers heard an audible shout of â€Å"Yes!† coming from my office.) My experience affirms their statement: â€Å"If students are able to summarize what they have read, they can better grasp how to put together their own arguments.† If only high school teachers understood this! IEW’s approach to writing instruction trains students to ask questions, and it creates decision-makers. Learning to limit themselves and summarize—or â€Å"some-a-rize†Ã¢â‚¬â€is a crucial component of that process as students navigate the ocean of information that surrounds them.    Janet Spitler, IEW's Schools Division Director, heads up our efforts to support full-time schools with ongoing training, teacher mentoring, telephone contact, and classroom-specific materials. With abundant classroom experience, Janet shares her experience of building a linguistically rich environment to develop a love for language and a community of learners. While she cherishes the time she spent influencing students and parents, today she applies that same dedication to the classroom teachers who use this method. She is accredited as an IEW ® Instructor at the highest level. Log in or register to post commentsJanet Spitlers blog Log in or register to post comments