Language and Grammar: Summarize

Pair Share With a partner, summarize either Eve’s story or Matt’s story. Remember to tell just the main ideas in your summary. Do not include unimportant details. Use past tense verbs in your summary.

Eve changed the way people thought about her school.

What were the main things she did to change people’s opinions of her school?

Writing and Grammar: Write Consistently About the Past

Study the Models When you write a summary of something that happened in the past, do not switch to the present and then back to the past, or your reader will become confused about when events took place.

Not Ok

Matt does many things that made a difference in children’s lives. When he was 14, Matt tells kids that bullying was wrong. He spends a lot of time talking to them. He also worked with an organization and creates play areas. He makes special playground equipment. Children of all abilities played at Matt’s playgrounds.

It is difficult to understand this writing because the writer switches between past and present.

Ok

Matt did many things that made a difference in children’s lives. When he was 14, Matt told kids that bullying was wrong. He spent a lot of time talking to them. He also worked with an organization and created play areas. He made special playground equipment. Children of all abilities played at Matt’s playgrounds.

The writer now sticks consistently with the past. The paragraph is much clearer.

Illustration of the pen icon WRITE ON YOUR OWN Think of an important or enjoyable event that happened at your school this year. Summarize the key points of the event. Do not switch back and forth between writing in the past and writing in the present.

REMEMBER

Most verbs add -ed to make their past tense forms. The irregular verbs be, have, and do use special forms to show the past tense.

Past Tense of beI wasyou werehe, she, or it waswe werethey were
Past Tense of haveI hadyou hadhe, she, or it hadwe hadthey had
Past Tense of doI didyou didhe, she, or it didwe didthey did