Summary Ball

When I use to teach, I often had students summarize using a Summary Ball. I would write a question on each section of an inflatable beach ball, such as What is the setting? Who is the main character? The ball would be tossed to a student, who would answer the question their right thumb landed on. More often than not, students would continually land on the same question to answer!

After reading the book Summarization in Any Subject Area by Rick Wormeli, I learned that a better way to use a summary ball is to toss the ball to a student who has three seconds to state any fact, concept, or skill recently presented in the lesson. The student then tosses the ball to someone else, who also has three seconds to state any fact, concept, or skill from the lesson. This continues until students sit because they have nothing more to add.

I wish I would have thought of doing this when I had a class. Brilliant! Thanks Rick!