It’s difficult for students to move from replicating an author’s words to accepting the challenge of expressing that author’s thoughts in their own words while discussing the material in the classroom (paraphrasing).
However, good paraphrasing must be taught since it aids in the development of crucial literacy skills: It motivates students to read more, promotes note-taking skills as they monitor quotes and outline text specifics, and broadens their vocabulary as they contemplate how to describe the original text. Students may find the technique intimidating since it takes effort to locate the right words to restructure a phrase, but it is time well spent.
It’s difficult for students to move from replicating an author’s words to accepting the challenge of expressing that author’s thoughts in their own words while discussing the material in the classroom (paraphrasing).
However, good paraphrasing must be taught since it aids in the development of crucial literacy skills: It motivates students to read more, promotes note-taking skills as they monitor quotes and outline text specifics, and broadens their vocabulary as they contemplate how to describe the original text. Students may find the technique intimidating since it takes effort to locate the right words to restructure a phrase, but it is time well spent.
Of course, we must teach paraphrasing so that students learn the necessary skill set to avoid inadvertent plagiarism.
TOOLS FOR STUDENTS
Making pupils aware of tools that may assist them in paraphrasing is one method to assist them. Consider them to be training wheels—students won’t be able to use them indefinitely. Academic Phrasebank: Students can use pre-made phrases to help them order their words while paraphrasing. The website includes sentence starters for defining concepts, contrasting and comparing ideas, articulating cause and effect, and providing evidence to back up claims.
For example, if a student was summarizing the vocabulary word X, sentence starters such as “The term X embraces…” may be found. “Defining the term X is difficult because…” and “The word X is designed to…”
The Ashford University Writing Center includes a five-item exam to review the paraphrasing procedure on their website. It enables pupils to recognize paraphrase examples and non-examples for a specific text
Students are shown how altering or rearranging words is similar to copying and pasting on a computer while looking at non-examples. Students observe instances of excellent paraphrasings, such as changing the sentence structure or adding personal emphasis to restricted quoted material.
Tone Analyzer: This tool allows students to insert a small portion of a text and obtain a tone analysis. Students can use this tool to get an assessment of whether the literature depicts anger, joy, sadness, or other emotions. In addition to these emotions, the website provides language descriptors such as confident (used to describe writings that use active voice and/or terms like a will, must, etc.) and tentative (used to describe texts that use the passive voice and/or phrases like a will, must, etc). (texts with words such as seems, appears, might, etc.). This device is effective in assisting pupils in properly aligning the tone of their paraphrased information with the original text’s tone.
PROMPTS FOR STUDENT SELF-EVALUATION
Students should outgrow the techniques mentioned above, and teachers may help them do so by showing them how to use paraphrases to track their own development. Students can self-check to see how far along they are with paraphrasing by asking themselves the following questions:
Can I tell which parts of the text are the most important (and hence should be preserved) when I rewrite it in my own words?
Is it possible for me to memorize parts of the book in order to prepare to put it into my own words?
How can I change the sentence structure while keeping the text’s meaning?
CAUTIONS FOR STUDENTS
Because the road to paraphrasing may be bumpy, it’s a good idea to anticipate probable student issues. Remind students that while paraphrasing, they should: Gradually, one component at a time, try to describe the text in their own terms (thanks to Doug Lemov and Maggie Johnson for this close reading strategy). For example, kids could begin by describing key phrases in the text in their own words, then attempt to explain one or two essential sentences, and then attempt to paraphrase an entire paragraph.
Keep an eye out for parallels between the text and the paraphrase. They should, for example, track how many words are exchanged after describing certain sentences or paragraphs. Rather than repeating the author’s words, concentrate on reiterating the same primary concept. The Yale University’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning provides simple examples of how to do so.
Ensure that the paraphrased content has a suitable number of word replacements. (Simply substituting a few words might be considered plagiarism.) Students should concentrate on modifying the sentence form. Converting a basic statement to a complex sentence or adding a prepositional phrase are examples of this.
Adjusting specific language should be avoided (acronyms, figurative language, jargon, etc.). Because these concepts are common knowledge, utilizing them in a paraphrase is not considered plagiarism. Students can use resources like the Purdue Online Writing Lab to determine whether a word is a common knowledge.
Students might be pushed to move by their teachers beyond copying by teaching students to think of paraphrasing as the preferred reading response. When we provide kids with the resources they need, we make student voices the norm rather than the exception.
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