Reading Summaries | 300-600 Points
For this project you will read all of the assigned readings for each unit, but choose only two per unit to summarize (50-100 points each). Compose 500-750 words max per summary. Compose more summaries for more points (up to 50 points per submission, for a max total of 600 points).
Your reading summaries will be created as blog posts on your WordPress site, in the category “Reading Summaries,” and tagged appropriately with the title of the reading you have summarized. You will submit links to your reading summaries using the form on your WordPress site.
Due Dates
Summaries 1 & 2 are due on January 25th by 11:59 pm; summaries 3-6 are due the first day of the relevant unit of study, by midnight:
- Summaries 1 & 2: 11:59 pm on January 25th
- Summaries 3 & 4: 11:59 pm on February 15th
- Summaries 5 & 6: 11:59 pm on February 29th
Once a unit has ended, no more points will be awarded for summaries of that unit’s readings. Late summaries can be submitted for completion credit (but not for points, see late work policy below) until midnight on March 7th.
Instructions
How to compose a summary:
Project Purpose and Goals: A summary emerges in the process of a reader’s coming to understand a text. This process might take very little time, or it might take several read-throughs and other steps, like looking up unknown words and annotating thoughts and ideas in the margins. Ultimately strong summaries for this course will reflectyour understanding of the articles’ main ideas, quoting one or two passages you deem particularly important. A summary is not the practice of replacing words with synonyms.
We recommend reading through the article once, annotating it, then putting it away and composing an answer to these question: What is the article? Who wrote it? What is it about? What are its main ideas? Then go back to the article. Adjust your answers as needed to most accurately reflect the articles’ content, and insert any paraphrases or quotations you feel are important; perhaps they are passages you feel you might reference in your own analytical writing later on.
This project is designed as an opportunity to practice gathering, summarizing, synthesizing, and explaining information from various sources.
Instructional Readings for writing summaries:
First Year Guide to Writing chapters XXXXX
Writer’s Help 2.0 XXXXX
Guidelines
*Use the literary present tense
*Cite paraphrased details and quotations (see Writer’s Help MLA guide for in-text citation)
*Limit quotations (1-3, brief, and only if the original language is very important)
*Include the bibliographic information (see Writer’s Help MLA guide for end citation)
*Consider multi-modes when composing in the blog post: spatial, visual, linguistic
Click here to see a copy of the evaluation rubric.