ELT365 · Day 167 — Gist tasks for reading

Idea — A reading gist task asks one broad question the whole text answers. Its purpose is to give direction and prevent word-by-word decoding on a first pass. One question; first read; time limit.

Example — ‘What is the writer’s main complaint?’ requires understanding the whole text’s argument, not any one sentence.

Try — Write a gist question for a text you already use. Test it: can a learner answer it without reading more than the first and last paragraph? If yes, it is a good gist question.

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