Summary Assignment

Wolf, Maryanne. "Screen-Based Online Learning Will Change Kids' Brains. Are We Ready for That?" Guardian, 24 August 2020. guardian.com, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/deep-literacytechnology-child-development-reading-skills. Reread your selected essay several times, making notes as you do so. Then summarize the essay in your own essay of 600-700 words. Until your summary's conclusion (see below), the main task here is not to present your own views about the essay and the topics it addresses, but to describe the essay in a way that would be both informative for someone unfamiliar with it and recognizable for its author. You will need to briefly quote the essay's most important statements and key terms (with page numbers if available). Mainly, though, you will need to paraphrase, and convey the essay's essential features concisely in your own words. Focus on the most significant or characteristic examples and illustrations the essay includes. Structure your sentences clearly and choose your words carefully. Organize your material into paragraphs, though these can be shorter and/or fewer than a longer essay would have: perhaps, a compact introduction, two or three short body paragraphs, and a conclusion. If you choose, this conclusion can shift focus to your evaluation of the essay: how persuasively and thoroughly does it present and develop the author's ideas? Having established what "they"the essay's author(s)say, you can begin to present what you have to say in response. The essay you summarize here can become one of your sources for the final essay: details will be available soon. For this assignment, you need not and should not use secondary sources: focus on the one essay you've chosen. If you have any questions about words used or references made in your chosen essay, please don't hesitate to contact me. Further suggestions on the summarizing process While rereading the essay, keep conversing with yourself about it. Are certain ideas, and/or certain parts of the essay, more important than they seemed at first? Where do the essay's key ideas emerge most clearly? Make sure that you are summarizing the full essay, and not focusing only on the elements you personally find most interesting. For this assignment, avoiding the first person will probably be appropriate, since your aim is to sum up what any reader should be able to find in the essay