Happy Tuesday!

I hope your Monday was fantastic IF you were in school... I sure am jealous of all the snow some of you are getting! ❄️❄️

Can we talk about something that quietly causes a lot of frustration (for teacher AND students) in upper elementary? No, I'm not talking about 6-7 or skibidi rizz...

⭐ Summarizing.
⭐ Paraphrasing.
⭐ Quoting.

We teach them. We model them. We assign them.

And then we read student work and realize… they’re all getting blended together.

🫩 A sentence copied directly from the text becomes a “paraphrase.”
🫩 A detailed retelling becomes a “summary.”
🫩 A random sentence gets dropped in as a "quote" with no explanation.

Anchor Chart & Notebook Entry

Years ago, I identified these three skills as major pain points that cause students a LOT of confusion. I was on a mission to help students understand.

We, of course, started with an anchor chart. Now, I definitely did NOT fill this all out at once with students! We used my Lesson Slides to help guide our learning and added to this as we completed the lessons.

As we create the anchor chart, I also have students follow along creating their own notes in their notebook. You can download the FREE notebook entry and headers for the anchor chart about half way down this post.

NEW! With state testing just around the corner, now is a great time to solidify these skills. Just yesterday, I combined all of my best resources for comprehensively teaching these skills!

Student Activities for Teaching

After students have learned and practiced the difference, we move on to some targeted practice. I start with these task cards, where students read a short passage and answer a specific paraphrase/summarize/quote question. This helps them practice each individual skill.

Once I've seen progress with the individual skills, it's time to combine them! I created these 16 task cards (now included as digital and printable full page options, too!) years ago to help students practice all three skills with the SAME passage. This really helps them to see the difference between the three!

💡 When students really understand the purpose behind each different text evidence strategy, their writing changes, and let's be clear: This isn’t just a writing skill. It’s a thinking skill.

And it’s one of those foundational pieces that pays off everywhere... reading comprehension questions, research projects, text evidence questions, state tests, all of it.

Can you tell I feel strongly about this?

Grab your bundle today to get started solidifying these skills!

Mary