01.07 The Gist of It All Instructions
Read the 1.07 Lesson prior to completing the assessment/assignment you see below.
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Part I: Summary Chart
Read “Nights and Dragons” located at the bottom of this document.
Complete the summary chart for “Nights and Dragons” by writing one sentence to summarize each section. Remember, each summary sentence:
· is much shorter than the original piece of writing
· mentions only the most important information
· paraphrases, or restates, the information in your own words
· discusses the author’s ideas, not your opinion about the ideas
Section
My Summary
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2
3
4
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Part II: Summary Paragraph
Write a well-developed paragraph of seven or more sentences. In your first sentence, mention the author, title of the text, and central idea of the entire text. Then write one sentence for each section of the text, recapping the central idea (from the summary chart). End by restating the central idea.
Type your summary here:
“Nights and Dragons” from the memoir of Abigail Prynne
1
I sit at my desk listening to thunder growl outside my window. Flashes of light burst through the darkness, and wind races past my window. The thrilling combination of sight and sound conjures up visions of dragons roaring proudly, breathing fire, and soaring across the midnight sky. Dragons first fascinated me when I was a little girl. They have followed me ever since. The magnificent creatures appeared in storybooks I read in the library, paintings I saw in museums, movies I watched in the theater, and the dreams I had in my sleep. By the time I was thirteen, one question consumed me. Determined to discover if dragons could have actually existed, I set out on a quest for facts.
2
As I started my research, I discovered many skeptics. Scientists presented evidence to show why dragons could not—and did not—exist. They explained that it would be impossible for dragons to fly because they were too big. They laughed at the idea of dragons breathing fire. They pointed out that no other animal has ever done this. They said that if dragons had lived, someone would have found remains somewhere in the world. No bones about it, there were plenty of logical explanations. It would have been easy for me to accept that the only place dragons ever existed was in the imaginations of those who believed.
3
I could have given up, but I thought about my grandmother. She always told me that "people who believe that science is the answer to everything are missing out on everything else." With her words in mind, I read more about dragons. I noticed that cultures across the world all described dragons in similar ways. This was odd because they had no way to communicate with each other. I found notes about dragons in old legal papers and in the travel logs of people like Marco Polo. Dragons were also mentioned in the Bible. I saw that the Chinese calendar uses a different animal each year. Dragons are included along with eleven real animals. I began to believe it was a real possibility that all of these people were talking about a creature that actually existed.
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