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Classroom Instruction That Works
Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Students Achievement

By Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, and Jane E. Pollack
Chapter 3: Summarizing and Note Taking
This chapter presents very interesting techniques: summarizing and note taking. They are both important skills that students need to understand and be familiar with all the steps that need to be taken. Also, for the students to benefit from these techniques they need to be trained. To summarize, it is important to delete some information, substitute others and keep key terms. However, to effectively delete, substitute and keep information students need to analyze the information at a deep level. The "Rule-Based" strategies are:
  Delete information that is not necessary or redundant;
  Substitute words for general terms;
  Select topic sentences or invent one if it is missing.

To be able to summarize students need to learn the frames of the texts. There are:
  The Narrative Frame;
  The Topic-Restriction-Illustration Frame;
  The Definition Frame;
  The Argumentation Frame;
  The Problem/Solution Frame, and
  The Conversation Frame.

Those frames are constituted of a series of questions that help students to extract important information from the texts, helping them to summarize the text.

Taking Notes: It is not good to record everything or write only few words to get good notes. One good strategy is the teacher to prepare the notes and give to the students as a model and while the discussion and class progress, allow students to review and revise it. Another way is to combine an informal or formal outline with graphic organizers. All those strategies will provide students with the tools to identify and understand the most important aspects of what the teacher is trying to convey.
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