Abstract:

Summary writing is no easy task (Piu, 2017) as it requires the ability to read a text and re-organize its content and general meaning in a shorter version. This entails several abilities: from integrating the sentences in a story one has read or heard to recognizing the text’s more general, superordinate meanings, and deploying inferential and interpretative processes to formulate and organize its core nuclei. This complex process is also connected with the readers’ initial schemas, expectations, emotions, competences and experiences: a dynamic and iterative meaning-making process guiding students’ understanding of a story (Van Dijk, Kintsch, 1997).

But what is the best approach to assessing the summarizing ability to collect information that can be used in formative and summative assessment?
Recent research shows that both quantitative and qualitative approaches have been tested to assess pupils’ ability to summarize. Quantitative, structured approaches (see Menichetti, 2018) are obviously easy to be measured, but they focus on reading comprehension and on the identification of the general meaning rather than on text production; whereas in qualitative approaches, comprehension and production are integrated and students are required to interpret and reformulate the text. Most of the available evaluation grids present useful descriptors for the analysis of language skills and of some of the cognitive aspects involved in summarizing (Benvenuto, 1987; Menichetti & Bertolini, 2019).

What we would like to propose in this paper is a new evaluation approach integrating structured and semi-structured tools for gathering information in a way that can orient both teachers and students along the teaching process. Our proposal aims at the definition of descriptors that will focus on the student’s ability to integrate cognitive, language and content aspects while understanding the text both locally and globally and organizing the summary.

References:
[1] Benvenuto, G, (1987). Insegnare a riassumere. Torino: Loescher.
[2] Menichetti, L. (2018). Valutare la capacità di riassumere. Il Summarizing Test, uno strumento per la scuola primaria [Evaluating summarizing skills. The Summarizing Test, a tool for primary school]. Journal of Educational, Cultural and Psychological Studies, 18, 369-396. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7358/ecps-2018-018-meni.
[3] Menichetti L., Bertolini C (2019). La prova qualitativa per la valutazione della capacità di riassunto: il Summary Qualitative Assessment (SQA) in A. Calvani, [4] L. Chiappetta Cajola, Strategie per la comprensione del testo. L’efficacia del Reciprocal Teaching, pp. 431-462. SApIE. Firenze.
[5] Piu, A. (2017). Making a summary is no easy task. A teaching-learning path for the development of summarizing skills in primary students. Proceedings ICERI2017 10th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, Seville (Spain). 16th - 18th of November, 2017, pp. 4613-4618.
[6] Van Dijk, T.A., Kintsch, W. (1997). Cognitive Psychology and Discourse: Recalling and summarizing stories. In W. Dressler (ed), Current Trends in Textlinguistics. Berlin and New York: Waller de Gruyter, pp. 61-80.

Keywords:

Summary Writing, Formative Assessment, Reading Comprehension, Text Production, Summarizing Ability.