Imagine you’ve just had a very busy day. You woke up, ate a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast, went to school, took a math test, ate in the school cafeteria, conducted an experiment in biology class, went to the mall and walked around with two of your friends, rode the bus home, did your homework, and are now sitting at the dinner table with your family.
If your mother asked you what you did today, you probably wouldn’t tell her every single detail. That would take too long! Instead, you would shorten the story by describing the most important events. This is called a summary. You might summarize (create a summary of) your day like this: “I took a math test, dissected a frog, and went to the mall.” Your mother may ask additional questions, but she has an overall idea of what your day was like because you just summarized it.
When you summarize a story, you give readers an idea of the story's plot by briefly describing each of the plot elements. For example, if you were going to summarize “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” you might say: "It’s a story about a bear family that lives in the woods. While they’re on a walk one day, a girl breaks in and eats their breakfast, then sleeps in their beds. The bears come home and scare the girl away.”
A summary is not nearly as exciting as hearing an entire story--its purpose is just to explain, as briefly as possible, what happened in the story.
Question
What elements of a story should be included in a plot summary?
