Name: ________________________________
Summary and Main Idea Worksheet 2

Directions: Read each passage and on a separate sheet of paper…

1. Create a title for the passage related to the main idea.
2. Accurately summarize the text.
3. Your summary must describe all key ideas from the text.
4. Do not include opinions or personal info in your summary.
5. Highlight or underline key ideas in each passage.

What’s dressed in all black, practices stealth, and is a master of espionage, sabotage, and assassination?  You guessed it: it’s a ninja!		
Perhaps the only thing more elusive than a ninja is the source of the word ninja.  In China ninja are more often referred to as shinobi.  The Chinese word shinobi, short for shinobi-no-mono, means “to steal away.”  The word shinobi appears in Chinese poems as far back as the eighth century.  So how did this word become ninja?  Some believe that during the Edo period in Japan, the word shinobi-no-mono was appropriated and transformed to the very similar word ninja.  This probably happened because it was a lot quicker and easier to just say ninja.  It is difficult to see how such a transformation could have occurred when we look at the words using our alphabet, but if you look at the kanji representing these words, it may make more sense to you.  This is how you write shinobi-no-mono in Chinese: .  And this is how you write ninja: .  Now do you see the similarities?

1. Main idea related title for the passage:

 
2. Summarize the passage in your own words: _______________________________________________

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Ninjas used many different tools and weapons to get the job done: throwing stars, bows, acid-spurting tubes to name a few, but the favorite weapon of most ninjas was probably the katana.  The katana is a long, curved sword with a single blade and a long grip to accommodate two hands.  This sword was often carried in a sheath or scabbard on the ninja’s back.  Though the sword was primarily used for fighting and killing, the scabbard served a number of purposes too.  The ninja could remove the sword, angle the scabbard against a wall, and use it to climb to a higher place.  Or, while stealthy negotiating their way through a dark place (such as an enemy’s residence at night), ninjas may have used the scabbard as a walking stick, feeling or probing their way around objects so as not to knock into anything and alert the enemy.  Perhaps the ninja’s most sinister use of the scabbard was to put a mixture of red pepper, dirt, and iron shavings at the top of the scabbard, so that when the ninja drew his sword, his opponent would be blinded.  I wonder what a ninja could have done with a Swiss Army knife.

3. Main idea related title for the passage:

 
4. Summarize the passage in your own words: _______________________________________________

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Invisibility, flight, the power to split into multiple bodies… these superhuman abilities have long been associated with ninjas, but ninjas didn’t really do all of that stuff.  They were just regular people with exceptional abilities.  So why do people think that ninjas had super powers?  Well, one reason is that ninjas were very secretive and left behind few historical records of their activities.  Since we do not know much about what they actually did, we are left to speculate.  Another reason why people often think that ninjas had superhuman abilities is because of how ninjas are depicted in folklore (particularly during the Edo period in Japan).  In such legends and works of art, ninjas were mysticized and romanticized.  These romantic notions of ninjas as superhero are perpetuated in media today, but maybe that’s just because these days people expect ninjas to have supernatural abilities.  Ki-yah!

5. Main idea related title for the passage:

	
 
6. Summarize the passage in your own words: _______________________________________________

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The image of the ninja wearing all black is a popular one indeed, but there is really no evidence that ninjas ever wore such a costume.  In fact, it is much more likely that ninjas dressed as regular civilians, which would have been far more effective camouflage in most situations than an all black suit.  The use of disguises amongst ninja is common and well-documented.  Ninja often dressed as monks, entertainers, fortune-tellers, merchants, or farmers.  Each of these disguises carried advantages that dressing in all black did not.  Dressed as monks, ninjas could conceal weapons in their robes.  Dressed as entertainers, they could spy in enemy buildings without arousing suspicion.  Dressed as fortune-tellers, they could extract information from unknowing targets.  Dressed as merchants, they could travel freely across enemy borders.  And while dressed as farmers, ninja carried simple gardening tools (such as sickles or trowels) and used them as deadly weaponry.  In this way if a ninja were caught by authorities, he could claim that his deadly apparatus were tools, not weapons.  Though they may not have been wearing all black stealth suits, ninjas were always well-disguised.  

7. Main idea related title for the passage:

	
 
8. Summarize the passage in your own words: _______________________________________________

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