Rephrasing text material in your own words is an effective way to promote
When discussing text in the classroom, it’s tough for students to shift from utilizing an author’s words (copying) to accepting the challenge to express that author’s idea in their own words (paraphrasing). Show
But teaching effective paraphrasing is necessary because the use of paraphrasing facilitates important literacy skills: It encourages repeated reading, develops note-taking habits as students track quotes and outline text details, and expands vocabulary as they consider appropriate ways to describe the original text. The skill may seem daunting to students because it takes time to find the appropriate words to reshape a sentence, but that is time well spent. We also need to teach paraphrasing, of course, so that students develop the skill set required to avoid committing plagiarism unintentionally. Student ToolsOne way to support students is to make them aware of tools that may help when they’re paraphrasing. Think of these as training wheels—students won’t use them forever. Academic Phrasebank: Ready-made phrases help students organize their sentences when they paraphrase. The site provides sentence starters for defining ideas, comparing and contrasting ideas, describing cause and effect, and explaining evidence to support statements. For instance, if a student were paraphrasing vocabulary word X, they would be able to find sentence starters such as “The word X encompasses...,” “The word X is challenging to define because...,” and “The word X is intended to....” Ashford University Writing Center: This website has a five-item quiz to review the paraphrasing process. It allows students to identify examples and non-examples of paraphrasing for a given text. When examining non-examples, students are shown how replacing or rearranging words is akin to copying and pasting on a computer. Students see examples of effective paraphrasing, including a change of sentence structure or personal elaboration combined with limited quoted information. Tone Analyzer: This tool allows students to enter a brief sample from a text and receive an analysis of the tone. When using this tool, students can request an assessment of whether the text illustrates anger, joy, sadness, etc. In addition to these emotions, the website includes language descriptors such as confident (used to describe texts that use active voice and/or words such as will, must, etc.) or tentative (texts with words such as seems, appears, might, etc.). This tool is useful in helping students successfully align the tone of their paraphrased material with the tone of the original text. Student Self-Check PromptsStudents should outgrow the tools above, and teachers can encourage that growth by showing them how to monitor their own progress with paraphrasing. Students can self-check to determine how on track with paraphrasing they are by asking themselves these questions:
Student CautionsBecause the journey to paraphrasing may involve a few hiccups, it’s a good idea to identify potential student challenges. When paraphrasing, remind students that they should:
Teachers can push students to move beyond copying by encouraging them to see paraphrasing as the go-to reading response. When we equip students with needed resources, we make student voice the rule instead of the exception. Which of the following is a mnemonic that makes effective use of vivid imagery?The Method of Loci is an effective mnemonic device, or a trick to aid in memory storage and retrieval. The effectiveness of the Method of Loci relies on visualizing mental images to associate with the material that needs to be remembered. The more vivid the visual, the more effective the method.
What term is used for memories that become distorted because they are confused with other memories?The Mandela effect occurs when a person believes that their distorted memories are, in fact, accurate recollections. They can clearly remember events that happened differently or events that never occurred at all.
Which of the following types of memory is of shortest duration?The shortest type of memory is known as working memory, which can last just seconds.
Which of the following is most likely to lead to semantic encoding of a list of words?Which of the following is most likely to lead to semantic encoding of a list of words? Thinking about how the words relate to your own life.
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