Summarizing a Speaker's Argument

1. Read aloud once: "We should have longer lunch breaks. Last semester, the nurse saw twice as many stomach aches after lunch on days when lunch was only twenty minutes."
2. Ask: "What does the speaker want?" (Longer lunch breaks.) "Why should we believe it?" (The nurse saw twice as many stomach aches on short-lunch days.)
3. Write the two answers on the board under POINT and SUPPORT. Ask how hard it was to hold both in your head from one hearing. Most will say the support was harder to recall.

1. Draw the two-column sheet on the board. Tell students you will fill it live and they should watch your pen, not write.
2. Read "Give Us a Garden" at speaking pace: "Good morning. I want to persuade you that our school needs a vegetable garden. First, a garden would teach us science outdoors. Mr. Okafor's class grew tomatoes last spring and measured them every week; their science test scores on plant life cycles were the highest in the grade. Second, a garden would help us eat better. When students grow vegetables themselves, they are more willing to try them — our school cook said more salad was eaten in the week Mr. Okafor's class served their tomatoes than in any week that semester. Third, a garden would make our school the best school in town. It really would. Everyone would see it and think we are the best. A garden is a great idea, and I hope you will vote for it."
3. Fill the board as you read, in three words or fewer: Point "science outdoors" — Support "tomato class, top scores." Point "eat better" — Support "cook: more salad eaten." Point "best school" — Support (leave the cell empty).
4. Ask: "What did the speaker give for the third point?" Fish for: "Nothing — they just said it again, louder." Write in the empty cell: "none — repeated."
5. Model the summary from the sheet: "The speaker argued that our school needs a vegetable garden. She said it would teach science outdoors, backed by a class whose test scores rose after growing tomatoes, and help students eat better, backed by the cook's report of more salad eaten. She also claimed it would make us the best school in town but gave no reason or evidence for that."
6. Name the habit: summary sentences have the shape "She said ___, and backed it with ___."

“Three words each side. You can expand after; you cannot pause a speaker. And if a box on the right stays empty, that is not a gap in your notes. That is a gap in the argument, and it is the most useful thing on the page.”

1. Read a second speech while students fill their own sheets: "Our class should keep a pet fish. Caring for a fish teaches responsibility — Room 12 has had a schedule for feeding their fish for a year, and they have not missed a single day. A fish is also cheap: a tank, a filter and food cost less than one class trip. And fish are just the best pets. Everybody loves fish. That's why we need one."
2. Students summarize in three sentences using the frame "The speaker said ___, and backed it with ___."
3. Pairs compare sheets. Ask: "Which point had no support, and how did you know?" Expect: "Fish are the best pets — the speaker only repeated it and said everybody loves them."
4. Push on "everybody loves fish": is that evidence? Agree it is a claim about everybody that the speaker did not check, so it is not support.

“Ask one question of every right-hand box: could I check this? A number, a person who saw it, a thing that happened — you could check. "Everybody loves fish" — you could not.”

1. Students complete the listening page. Read the page's talk aloud twice: first to fill the Point column, second to fill the Support column.
2. Students circle any point with an empty support cell.

1. Take one point and its support from the page, then ask for any gap. Praise the student who found the unsupported point loudest.