Summarizing the Plot: Retelling What Is Retelling? Why Use Retelling? Retelling Tips Use the Strategy Practice the Strategy Feature Menu

Summarizing the Plot: Retelling

What Is Retelling?

Why Use Retelling?

Retelling Tips

Use the Strategy

Practice the Strategy

Feature Menu


Retell simply means “tell again.”

You tell the story again

when you use retelling as a reading strategy.

The author of a story or novel tells the story once as he or she writes it.

What is retelling?


Retelling is not just stringing all the events of the story together with “and then . . . and then . . .”

That’s what young children do when they give a summary of a story. Listen to this.

What is retelling?


When you retell a story, you create a summary of the story—not just a list of events.

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What is retelling?


• keep events in order

Why use retelling as a strategy?

Retelling helps you

• identify main events in the plot

Retelling is especially useful for long stories, stories with complicated plots, and stories that switch back and forth in time.

• understand how the events are related

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Retelling Tips

Start by retelling the title and author.

Identify the characters.

The story is a version of the fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin” written by Rosemarie Künzler.

The main characters are the miller’s daughter and an odd little man named Rumpelstiltskin.


Retelling Tips

Explain the conflict, or main problem.

The miller’s daughter has been locked in a room by the king because the miller boasted that she could spin straw into gold. The king has threatened her with death if she doesn’t perform this miracle by the next morning.


First, the miller’s daughter is in despair, but then a little man appears and offers to do the work. He wants to be paid, so she gives him her necklace, and he disappears. The king is pleased, but after that, he locks her in an even larger room filled with even more straw.

Tell the main events, keeping them in order.

Use words like first, next, then, later, and finally to help keep everything in order.

Retelling Tips


Retelling Tips

The next night, the little man appears again, and the young woman gives him her ring in payment. The king says he wants to marry her. However, she has to spin gold for one more night. The little man appears again and asks to be paid, but she has no more jewelry. He asks for her first child after she marries the king.

Use words and phrases like but, however, or on the other hand when something contradicts something else that has happened.


Retelling Tips

Finally, her eyes are opened. She does not want to marry the king. Additionally, she has no intention of giving up a child. As a result of her refusal to pay, the little man becomes angry and stomps his foot so hard that the door pops open. The miller’s daughter escapes.

Explain how the story ends.


Tell what you liked or didn’t like about the story.

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I like the ending of the original story of “Rumpelstiltskin” better. In the original story, the miller’s daughter saves her child by guessing the little man’s secret name. This version doesn’t even talk about his name.

Retelling Tips


Use the Strategy

As you read “Dragon, Dragon,” stop at each open-book sign and think about what you have just read.

Sometimes part of the retelling will be done for you. At other times, you will do the retelling.

Stop and

think.

Answer the

question.

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We heard a story called Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes. The story takes place mostly in a kindergarten class. The main characters are Lilly, a girl who is in kindergarten, and her teacher. The story begins when Lilly’s grandmother gives her a beautiful purple plastic purse for her birthday. Next, Lilly takes her special purse to school. Then she wants to play with it, but her teacher tells her to put it away.

What parts of the Retelling Guide are included in this first paragraph?



We heard a story called Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes. The story takes place mostly in a kindergarten class. The main characters are Lilly, a girl who is in kindergarten, and her teacher. The story begins when Lilly’s grandmother gives her a beautiful purple plastic purse for her birthday. Next, Lilly takes her special purse to school. Then she wants to play with it, but her teacher tells her to put it away.

What words are used in this retelling instead of and then?


Use the Retelling Guide on page 16 in your textbook to organize your retelling.

Now retell “Dragon, Dragon.” Be sure to think about how you will connect the story’s main events.

Avoid the word and. Instead, use some of these:

first • next • then • later • finally • additionally • furthermore • as a result • following that • after that • in conclusion


As you listen to your partner retell the story, decide whether he or she covers each item a little, to some extent, a lot, or not at all.

Use the Retelling Checklist to rate your partner’s retelling of “Dragon, Dragon.”

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Summarizing the Plot: Retelling What Is Retelling? Why Use Retelling? Retelling Tips Use the Strategy Practice the Strategy Feature Menu