Summary

Summary asks writers to identify and restate in their own words the most important elements of another writer's text and, in doing do, capture the relative importance of different moments in that text as well as their logical relationship to one another. In many contexts summary is a formative assignment that's a step in a larger essay or project; in other contexts, though, it might be its own standalone assignment. 

For a scholarly article, summary might mean stating the source's central claim and reconstructing the general features of its argument, using key terms and concepts. For a novel or film, it might mean unpacking plot into the linear sequence of events in a "story" and introducing the most important figures, turning points, or literary-critical concepts. The specific approach any summary exercise takes will differ based on what you're trying to do with it in your class, but it can be a really useful point of departure (or reset) at almost any point in a writing assignment. Summary is really useful for a few reasons:

1. It helps students test—and often improve—their understanding of a text

2. Being able to clearly and accurately capture a writer’s argument in your own words is always a good, if not necessary, step before engaging in analysis of it

3. In classes with a research essay component, summary offers good practice for generating annotated bibliographies. 

Typical learning objectives for summary: identify central claims and key terms, demonstrate understanding of argument, demonstrate understanding of narrative sequences, identifying roles of evidence, paraphrase, concision, use of strong verbs

Common types of summary and related types: synopsis, argument reconstruction, abstracts, annotated bibliography

While it's often a point of departure for other kinds of writing, summary itself needs framing and practice in order to make it the reliable foundation those other kinds of writing are going to build off of.

Framing

When asking students to summarize a text they've read, make it clear what the goals of the exercise will be. Is the goal to make sure everyone is on the same page about the basic outlines of a reading before discussing it in class? Is the goal to highlight the complexities of a seemingly straightforward argument? Will students be using elements of the summary in an upcoming essay or project? (See "Why It's Useful" above for ideas on framing the possible roles of summary as an exercise).

Practice

Summary can be something writers practice with or without a lot of "teaching" on the front end. Allowing students to try their hand at a summary before introducing principles can be a low-stakes way to find out where their intuitions are at with the skill. Or you can introduce the principles at the start—it's productive in both directions. Once students have drafted summaries, it can be a simple in-class exercise to have them compare their drafts with one another in groups: What were elements everyone included, or only one person, etc.? What are probably the elements any summary would include, versus the elements certain kinds of summary might focus more on? Does everyone agree on what the central claim or most important examples/evidence are? Or the order of logical development or events? Or maybe substantive differences will emerge about the nature of the source's main ideas. Getting all of these questions (and where reasonable areas of convergence and divergence lie) sorted out early in the process can bake in a lot of success to any subsequent steps of a writing assignment.