Cinderella BME Summarization Activity

Cinderella is a great book for teaching students beginning-level summaries. Students are often familiar with the tale, but will need to use the details from this version to create a successful summary storyboard. This is a great stepping stone to summarizing lengthier chapter books. The storyboard format will help students practice being concise and will enable them to think critically about the importance of certain events.

Consider having students plan their storyboard using a blank template prior to creating the full storyboard online. Students should begin with the narrative in each box before adding character dialogue. This will allow them to focus on the purpose of summarizing and determining importance before getting distracted by the details of the storyboard. Students can also be given a set number of frames to use as a guide towards conciseness. After planning on a template, students can compare the important events they chose with a partner, and the class could discuss why different events in the story were included in the storyboard over others.

Student Instructions

Make a storyboard summary of Cinderella.

1. Make pictures that show two main events from the beginning of the story.
2. Make pictures that show two main events from the middle of the story.
3. Make pictures that show two main events from the end of the story.
4. Write a sentence under each picture.