lesson plan in paraphrasing

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Teaching Students to Paraphrase

Ideas for scaffolding paraphrasing so that students correctly learn this valuable but difficult-to-master skill.

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).

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 Tools

One 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 Prompts

Students 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:

• Can I identify elements of the text that are most significant (and thus appropriate to preserve) when I put it in my own words?
• Can I recite elements of the text from memory in order to prepare to put it into my own words?
• How can I adjust the sentence structure to preserve the meaning of the text?

Student Cautions

Because 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:

• Attempt to describe the text in their own words gradually, one component at a time (thanks to Doug Lemov and Maggie Johnson for this close reading strategy). For instance, they might first use their own words to describe significant phrases in the reading, and then make an effort to explain one or two key sentences, and finally attempt to paraphrase an entire paragraph.
• Monitor the similarities between the text and the paraphrase. For instance, after describing specific sentences or paragraphs, they should note how many words are shared. Instead of using the same words as the author, focus on mirroring the same main idea. The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning at Yale offers easy-to-follow models for how to achieve this.
• Ensure that there is a sufficient number of word substitutions in the paraphrased material. (Substituting only a couple of words could constitute plagiarism.) Students should focus on changing the structure of the sentence . This may involve converting a simple sentence to a compound sentence or adding a prepositional phrase.
• Avoid adjusting special language (acronyms, figurative language, jargon, etc.). These kinds of terms are considered common knowledge, so using them in a paraphrase doesn’t constitute plagiarism. Resources such as the Purdue Online Writing Lab can help students figure out whether a particular term is common knowledge.

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.

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How to Teach Paraphrasing to High School Students

Research Writing , Secondary Literacy , Writing

Paraphrasing is a skill that students often learn in elementary or middle school. However, it is important to teach paraphrasing to high school students as well. Paraphrasing is an important writing skill. It encourages students to expand their vocabulary and modify sentence styles. It also challenges them to read closely and analyze meaning.

Paraphrasing is also an essential skill to avoid plagiarism . As high school students begin researching and developing more complex ideas, it is important to clarify the difference between paraphrasing a sentence and plagiarizing an essay.

What is the Goal of Paraphrasing?

Put simply, the goal of paraphrasing is to use the student’s own words to rephrase the words of another source. When students use their own words, they demonstrate that they have interpreted the information, made sense of it, and reiterated it to their audience. Thus, the goal of paraphrasing is also to demonstrate the student’s understanding of the source .

Students can also use paraphrasing as a tool to deepen their own understanding of a text . This is especially useful for English Language Learners reading at a new Lexile level. It can also help students reading antiquated texts, like Shakespeare or Beowulf . Finding meaning within each sentence or phrase can act as a stepping stone to understanding challenging texts as a whole.

Finally, an important goal of paraphrasing is to help students avoid plagiarism . Students can avoid direct plagiarism by rewording their sources and reiterating their understanding. Additionally, they can avoid other forms of plagiarism by properly integrating citations into their writing .

What is the Difference Between Paraphrasing and Summarizing?

Knowing the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing is essential for students writing standardized tests , including the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) , the AP Language and Composition Exam, and both the SAT and the ACT.

Summarizing involves highlighting the main points of an entire work or idea. A summary includes some of the supporting details, but not all. The goal of a summary is to capture the “big picture. ” In contrast, paraphrasing involves reiterating isolated details within a work or idea . Paraphrasing restates the specific details within a work. It is not necessary to make a connection between these details and the “big picture” of a text.

What is the Difference Between Paraphrasing and Annotating?

Paraphrasing and annotating share similarities. For one, both aim to explain a section of a work. Paraphrasing and annotating are also important parts of the close reading process. To differentiate between these two skills, it is best to consider paraphrasing as rewording the text, and annotating as reacting to the text . Deeper analysis, criticism, and opinion are important elements of annotation, but students should avoid including these elements when paraphrasing.

Activities to Teach Paraphrasing to High School Students

Use music to introduce paraphrasing to high school students.

Whether they realize it or not, students are using paraphrasing skills in their everyday life . When sharing information across cultural or generational boundaries, paraphrasing is often necessary. If you’ve ever needed to ask your students to translate modern music or slang, then you’ve essentially asked them to paraphrase! Similarly, if your students have asked you to decode a challenging sentence or paragraph within a text, they’ve also asked you to paraphrase.

A fun way to teach paraphrasing to high school students is to start in their comfort zone. I have had great success with using modern music to teach paraphrasing to older classes. This involves finding song lyrics that rely on slang words or cultural phrases and prompting students to paraphrase each line. Your students will get a kick out of explaining the meaning of these lyrics to you.

Here are some song suggestions for this activity. ( Note that some songs deal with mature themes. )

• “ 3 Nights ” by Dominic Fike
• “ Green Eyes ” by Arlo Parks
• “ Thinkin Bout You ” by Frank Ocean
• “ Sunflower ” by Harry Styles
• “ Don’t Start Now ” by Dua Lipa

With the right group of students, exploring the genre of rap can be a productive and engaging lesson for teaching paraphrasing . Unfortunately, rap music is not written for the classroom – even censored versions deal with mature subject matter. Use your professional judgment to determine whether or not this type of activity would be suitable for your students. The following song lyrics offer cultural dialect and a level of complexity that would be an engaging challenge to paraphrase:

• “ Humble ” by Kendrick Lamar ( censored version )
• “ Savage ” by Megan Thee Stallion ( censored version )
• “ God’s Plan ” by Drake ( censored version )
• “ Oceans ” by Jay Z
• “ The Season / Carry Me ” by Anderson .Paac

Apply Paraphrasing to More Challenging Texts

Now that students have practiced paraphrasing using high-interest texts , you can challenge them with literature outside of their comfort zone. Simply select an excerpt from a text written in Old English and format it on a worksheet with a blank text box next to the text. Students can paraphrase the text line-by-line to decipher meaning . This activity would pair well with any Shakespeare text in your school curriculum.

Alternatively, you could assign an antiquated text to explore as a class . Some options include The Seafarer , Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal , or the epic poem Beowulf . I find this activity especially effective when I divide a text amongst groups of students and assign them the task of paraphrasing different sections.

Model Paraphrasing During Read-Alouds in High School

Teaching paraphrasing can be as simple as modeling it during a read-aloud period in your classroom. This can involve pausing after reading important parts of the text to reiterate the message. You can also practice paraphrasing aloud after reading complex sentences to offer clarification.

After teaching students about paraphrasing, you can also ask them to paraphrase for you during read-alouds. If you haven’t taught this skill yet, you can simply ask students a simpler prompt, like “In your own words, what is this sentence/paragraph communicating? ”

To differentiate between paraphrasing and annotating , you can ask students to keep their responses separate from their reactions to the text. When they begin to offer too much insight, analysis, or criticism, you can coach them to take a step back and focus simply on the meaning .

To differentiate between paraphrasing and summarizing, you can also prompt students to summarize the text after the read-aloud. If you haven’t taught the skill of summarizing yet, you can simply ask students another simple prompt like “ what is this text about? “

Practice Integrating In-Text Citations to Teach Paraphrasing to High School Students

As mentioned, one of the goals of paraphrasing is to help students avoid plagiarism in their writing. To do so, students must be able to properly integrate in-text citations . These two skills will help students to credit sources and maintain academic integrity.

I teach this skill explicitly to students by practicing in-text citations in class. Mondays Made Easy offers in-text citations practice worksheets to model how to write parenthetical and integrated citations in student writing. These worksheets explore high-interest topics and offer a number of differentiation options , including different Lexile levels and a Tic-Tac-Toe activity to implement student choice.

If you’ve been struggling to teach paraphrasing to high school students , I hope these lesson plans and ideas are able to offer you some engaging solutions. For more activities and advice for the English Language Arts classroom, be sure to follow along on Instagram:

mondaysmadeeasy

Canadian Curriculum Designer and Education Blogger

Reader Interactions

[…] in-text citations indicate where an idea originally came from. The idea could be word-for-word or paraphrased. As their name suggests, in-text citations exist within the text of an essay or paragraph. They […]

[…] You can incorporate classroom playlists into your English Language Arts curriculum in a number of ways. One way would be to simply have students select a song and write about the author’s purpose. Another way would be to assign students a playlist, have them select a song, and then have them paraphrase the music lyrics. […]

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Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is finding another way to say something when you don't know how to say it.

Paraphrasing is not only an essential skill for all speakers but also key to learners developing communicative ability beyond their existing knowledge of language.

Example The learner is describing a photograph of a glider and doesn't know the word, so paraphrases by saying ‘an airplane that uses the wind'.

In the classroom One way to practise paraphrasing is through word games. For example, in a definition game learners have to provide paraphrases, so that others can guess the original word. This can be done in written form in crossword activities as well.

Further links: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/heroes-villains-pride-prejudice-0 https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/windrush-generation https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/green-great https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/creativity-language-classroom  

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Paraphrasing Lesson Plan: Research to Build and Present Knowledge

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the  Paraphrasing Lesson Plan . 

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Paraphrasing , and supports the standard of paraphrasing information in notes and finished work. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display a few sentences from an article, such as this:

“One of the first companies to make non-toxic crayons safe for toddlers, Crayola was an instant success. According to the company’s website, Crayola produced more than 100 billion crayons in its first 100 years, and it continues to produce an astounding 3 billion each year!”

Ask students:

• How would you paraphrase this, or say it in your own words?
• Why might you paraphrase something you’ve read? 

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

• Read the description on the Paraphrasing topic page .
• Play the Movie , pausing to check for understanding. 
• Have students read one of the following Related Reading articles: “Way Back When,” “Arts and Entertainment,” or “Language.” Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Students take the Paraphrasing Quiz , applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about paraphrasing while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

• Make-a-Movie : Produce a preview for a movie about an article you’ve read that paraphrases its key ideas.
• Make-a-Map : Make a concept map identifying strategies for paraphrasing a page in a textbook. Use specific examples.
• Creative Coding : Code a conversation where one character speaks and the other paraphrases what they say.

More to Explore

Related BrainPOP Topics : Deepen understanding of research and writing strategies with these topics: Plagiarism , Citing Sources , and Research . 

Teacher Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview : Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas.  
• Learning Activities Modifications : Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• Learning Activities Support : Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.

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• 2 Advancing Learning: The challenges of speaking
• 3 Advancing Learning: Confessions from an obsessive language learner: what I have learnt from continually studying languages for 32 years
• 4 Advancing Learning: Developing real conversation skills
• 5 Advancing Learning: Does anyone really need to use a dictionary?
• 6 Advancing Learning: Empowering students with paraphrasing strategies
• 7 Advancing Learning: EMI: English as a medium of instruction
• 8 Advancing Learning: The Fifth Skill – ‘viewing’
• 9 Advancing Learning: Five strategies to help students cultivate a growth mindset
• 10 Advancing Learning: Gamification
• 11 Advancing Learning: Global Citizenship Education in the ELT classroom
• 12 Advancing Learning: Guilt-free teaching – how your students learn more when you plan less
• 13 Advancing Learning: Helping very young learners improve their collaboration skills
• 14 Advancing Learning: How to approach essay writing
• 15 Advancing Learning: Long live 'Life Skills'!
• 16 Advancing Learning: Making blended learning useful and effective
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• 23 Advancing Learning: Top tips for managing your pre-primary classroom

Advancing Learning: Empowering students with paraphrasing strategies

By Judy Alden

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Paraphrasing is a skill that is often assessed in exams. Experienced teacher and assessment writer Judy Alden examines how to teach it, offering practical tips and techniques you can take straight to the classroom.

Introduction

As English Language teachers, one of our core aims is to teach our learners how to express themselves. And I’m sure, like myself, you receive a great deal of satisfaction when your learners are able to reproduce the language that you’ve taught them. But what else can we do to avoid learners simply sticking to the script? The answer is quite simple: we need to demonstrate the power of paraphrasing in the classroom.

Paraphrasing is an essential skill that helps learners develop their communicative ability beyond their existing knowledge of language. In other words, it’s an empowering skill that enables learners to keep learning new words or phrases similar to the ones they already know. This is why in this article we’re going to look at a paraphrasing technique, activities to encourages students to paraphrase, and how paraphrasing is often a skill that is assessed in exams in all the subskills.

Synonyms for all levels

Teaching synonyms is a straightforward technique that can be adapted to all levels of learners. In fact, it’s probably one of the first strategies used with lower level learners to start expanding their vocabulary. For example, when teaching the A2 word ‘ grandmother ’ the synonyms ‘ grandma, granny, gran, nanna, nan ’ can also be taught since they are the informal versions of ‘grandmother’ which native speakers would tend to use. With higher level students, you can use the same approach but with a more complex word bank of synonyms. Learners at all levels need to identify and separate which synonyms are formal ( green ) and which are informal ( blue ).

Rather than teaching students how to express something with one word, think about having them build up sets of synonyms. Then learners will know how to create their own word banks of linking words that have similar meanings so they can express themselves in a variety of ways right from the start.

Four paraphrasing activities

As every teacher knows, having a toolkit of ideas keeps things fresh in the classroom. So how can we encourage our students to use paraphrasing strategies in the classroom on an ongoing basis? One way to achieve this is to include learner-centred ice-breakers to target this skill. Here are four ice-breakers that you might want to try or adapt for your learners.

Social Butterfly (speaking)

This ice-breaker focuses on paraphrasing when answering questions at an imaginary party. Elicit a few questions from your learners and write down a list of question prompts they need to ask people (e.g. …name? …age? …hobbies? …free time? …last holiday? etc). Then tell learners that they must go and mingle. Encourage them to be ’social butterflies’ and speak to as many people as possible in the allotted time (five minutes). When they mingle, they must take turns asking and answering the questions. Let learners know that whenever someone answers a question, they must say either ‘ Pardon? ’ or ‘ Sorry? ’ to prompt their partner to rephrase what they have said.

You might want to write one or two examples up on the board. For example,

What’s your name?

My name ’s Kasia.

I’m called  Kasia.

What do you like doing in your free time?

I usually go swimming  or visit  my friends .

I like going for a swim  or hanging out  with my mates .

To create a party-like environment, you could play music while learners complete the task. While the activity is taking place, monitor and record good examples of paraphrasing, then go over them as a whole group.

Full Picture (reading & speaking)

To avoid having this jigsaw reading task become a detailed reading task, text selection is essential for this five-minute ice-breaker. Choose a brief, three-paragraph text that has a clear beginning, middle and end – a text about a sequence of events, for example, works well for this type of task. Then place learners into groups of three and give each student a different paragraph. If possible, put each paragraph on different colour card. Give the class one minute to read their paragraphs without writing down any notes. When time’s up, they must place their texts face down. For the next three minutes, each teammate has about a minute to tell their team what their paragraph said, so they can decide on the order of the paragraphs. For the final minute, ask teams to give reasons for their decisions. This will encourage learners to further paraphrase their texts before you, finally, ask teams to turn the texts over and check if they figured out the correct order.

Back to the Board (listening & speaking)

Back to the Board is an ice-breaker that can be adapted for all ages and levels and is an excellent student-centred approach to revising vocabulary by paraphrasing key words. To set this task up, you need to divide the class into two teams and place two chairs at the front of the class facing away from the whiteboard or Smartboard. You’ll also need a list of vocabulary learnt in previous sessions and a scoreboard. Nominate one person from each team to sit with their backs to the board. Once they are seated, emphasise that they mustn’t peek! Then, write one word from your list on the board. Ask the class to describe the word on the board. The first person with their backs to the board to shout out the correct word earns a point for their team. Have a new pair come up, and keep repeating the process until you complete the list of words. The team with the most points wins.

It’s always a good idea to demonstrate at least one example before nominating the first two students:

• Write the word on the whiteboard: e.g., houseboat
• Demonstrate an explanation without saying ‘house’ or ‘boat’: It’s an unusual type of home that floats. You can see this kind of home on canals or lakes.

Message Trail (writing)

A very quick writing task to encourage learners to paraphrase when they write is called Message Trail. This ice-breaker is easy to prepare – all you need are four sentences targeting vocabulary and structures previously learnt in class. Put learners into groups of four and give each person a piece of paper that has a different sentence. Tell learners they need to change one word in the message so that it still has the same meaning then pass the message to the person on their left. Keep passing and rephrasing the messages until the teams run out of ideas of how to paraphrase the sentences. Finally, have each team read out their final sentence to compare the types of paraphrases they came up with. The team with the most paraphrases that still reflects the meaning of the first sentence wins.

It’s also a good idea to do one example with the class. For example:

I rarely  have enough time to clean my room.

I hardly ever have enough time to clean my  room .

I hardly ever have enough time  to clean my bedroom .

I hardly ever  have  time  to clean my bedroom.

Only on rare occasions  do I have time to clean  my bedroom.

Only on rare occasions do I have time to  tidy up  my bedroom.

Paraphrasing for exam success

You’ll be doing your learners a great service by reinforcing how to paraphrase in the classroom, as it is a skill that is needed for exams from A2 onwards. For speaking assessments, for example, encouraging learners to paraphrase by rephrasing statements, questions or ideas, and saying them in a different way, results in higher marks.

Many listening and reading exams often have questions that test listening or reading for detailed meaning, gist, feelings, attitudes and opinions, all of which require learners to decode paraphrases. In order to achieve this, learners need to piece together the different paraphrases they hear or read in order to arrive at the correct answer. So even at the lower end of the CEFR scale, paraphrasing comes into play.

Writing exams generally award lower marks if learners simply lift vocabulary off the question paper rather than paraphrase the information provided to complete the task. For example, the new B1 Preliminary Part 1 Writing task requires learners to write an email in about 100 words using four note prompts in a situational email. Learners should always aim to rephrase the prompts and the language that appears in the email in order to receive higher marks. Importantly, they need to identify what type of information they need to write about, rephrase information in the email and add their own ideas.

For example, learners should avoid copying large segments of text that appear in the email like this:

I’m really happy we’re working on the science project together too!

Encourage them to paraphrase like this:

I’m so glad we’re going to be partners for the science project!

Hopefully, by developing your learners’ ability to paraphrase in the classroom, they’ll have the skill and confidence to perform well in exams. However, the real icing on the cake is for learners to become self-aware of the power of paraphrasing and how it can support their language learning journey.

About the author

Judy Alden originally comes from Vancouver and has over 18 years’ experience teaching in South East Asia and Europe. She combines being a freelance assessment writer with delivering teacher training workshops, while also writing ELT course books and materials for international publishers.

As an assessment writer based in the UK, she often gets asked to produce listening assessments varying between British and American English. Judy has also written young learner assessment materials for the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Education. 

• advancing learning

Advancing Learning: The challenges of speaking

Advancing Learning: Confessions from an obsessive language learner: what I have learnt from continually studying languages for 32 years

Advancing Learning: Developing real conversation skills

Advancing Learning: Does anyone really need to use a dictionary?

Advancing Learning: EMI: English as a medium of instruction

Advancing Learning: The Fifth Skill – ‘viewing’

Advancing Learning: Five strategies to help students cultivate a growth mindset

Advancing Learning: Gamification

Advancing Learning: Global Citizenship Education in the ELT classroom

Advancing Learning: Guilt-free teaching – how your students learn more when you plan less

Advancing Learning: Helping very young learners improve their collaboration skills

Advancing Learning: How to approach essay writing

Advancing Learning: Long live 'Life Skills'!

Advancing Learning: Making blended learning useful and effective

Advancing Learning: Moving towards learning-friendly teaching

Advancing Learning: Multisensory learning in the inclusive classroom

Advancing Learning: Online Language Teacher Education

Advancing Learning: A practical guide to online professional development

Advancing Learning: The secrets of using learning routines with young children

Advancing Learning: Teaching mediation

Advancing Learning: Top tips for managing your pre-primary classroom

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Exploring Plagiarism, Copyright, and Paraphrasing

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This lesson helps students understand copyright, fair use, and plagiarism by focusing on why students should avoid plagiarism and exploring strategies that respect copyright and fair use. The lesson includes three parts, each framed by a KWL chart. In the first part, focusing on plagiarism, students discuss plagiarism and look at examples to determine whether the passages are plagiarized. Part two introduces copyright and fair use. Students use a Think-Pair-Share strategy to explore questions about fair use, then read several scenarios and determine if the uses described are fair use. In the third part, students develop paraphrasing skills through direct practice with paraphrasing text book passages using an online notetaking tool. This lesson plan was developed as part of a collaborative professional project with the American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy and the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).

Featured Resources

• Checklist for Fair Use : Use this checklist to determine if your use of copyrighted material is considered fair use.
• ReadWriteThink Notetaker : Use this online tool to organize and reorganize notes.

From Theory to Practice

Students need multiple opportunities to practice citing sources and paraphrasing, to see examples of writing that properly uses paraphrasing and citations, and to reinforce these concepts. When students are taught information about these concepts early in their academic careers they are more likely to find success when the demands for research increase with the sophistication of their work. As their work becomes more sophisticated, students must have an understanding of fair use practices concerning copyright. Giving credit for a source is essential, but there are times when just a citation is not enough. Depending upon what part and how much of the text a writer uses, he or she may need to seek permission to use the material. By discussing and practicing paraphrasing and working through some fair use examples in this lesson, students should gain a better understanding of these concepts.

Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
• 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

• Student textbook from a content area such as social studies or science
• Internet connection and projection capabilities
• Identifying Plagiarism PowerPoint Presentation
• Paraphrasing Practice PowerPoint Presentation
• Research Skills KWL
• Checklist for Fair Use
• Paraphrasing Practice handout
• Identifying Plagiarism examples

Preparation

• This lesson is designed to be co-planned and co-taught by the classroom teacher and the school library media specialist. Meet to decide responsibilities for teaching the lessons and assessing student work, as well as to arrange logistics for using the library media center.  In advance, agree upon lead and support educator roles for each session. Educators are strongly encouraged to alternate roles depending upon individual strengths and expertise.
• Ideally, the library media specialist and English language arts teacher will also collaborate with a willing colleague from the science or social science department for the activities in this lesson.
• Choose a section or chapter in the student textbook to use during each part of the lesson and as part of the student assessment. Textbook sections that have not/may not be covered in class work best.
• Make copies of the Research Skills KWL handout and Checklist for Fair Use for each student.
• Make arrangements to project the Paraphrasing Practice PowerPoint Presentation and the Identifying Plagiarism PowerPoint Presentation , or create separate transparencies for each sentence on the Paraphrasing Practice and Identifying Plagiarism sheets.
• If students need additional practice, choose passages from available texts (e.g., an elementary level encyclopedia; student writing; unfamiliar school or college textbooks). Work together to create your own paraphrased and plagiarized versions of the passages to extend student options for identifying plagiarism.
• The classroom teacher and library media specialist should test the ReadWriteThink Notetaker on the computers to familiarize themselves with the tool and to ensure the Flash plug-in is installed. Schools can download the plug-in from the Technical Support page .

Student Objectives

Students will:

• define plagiarism, fair use, and paraphrasing.
• recognize and provide examples of plagiarism, fair use, and paraphrasing.
• use appropriate paraphrasing strategies to replace advanced-level words with age/grade/level appropriate vocabulary.

Note: In addition to the stated NCTE/IRA standards, this lesson is also aligned to the following American Association of School Librarians Standards for the 21st-Century Learner .

• Respect copyright/intellectual property rights of creators and producers.
• Follow ethical and legal guidelines in gathering and using information
• Use information and technology ethically and responsibly.
• Respect the principles of intellectual freedom.

Session One

• Distribute the Research Skills KWL handout, and ask the students to complete the "know" and "want to know" columns for each of the three items.
• The classroom teacher and library media specialist should co-lead a discussion of the students' responses for the "know" and "want to know" columns of the plagiarism section of the worksheet.
• Create a class definition of plagiarism, using the information on students KWL chart. Be sure that the class definition includes the idea of using another person's words or ideas without crediting the original writer.
• Failure of the assignment or course
• Requirement to do the work over
• Suspension/expulsion
• Lawsuit, fines, and/or firing for workplace plagiarism
• Paraphrase with appropriate citations
• Give credit through footnotes/endnotes, a works cited page, or a bibliography
• Share examples from the  Identifying Plagiarism PowerPoint Presentation or Identifying Plagiarism Sheet , and ask students to determine whether the passages are plagiarized. Add examples from class texts to expand this practice at identifying plagiarism.
• During the class discussion of the passages, consider the following advice from Laura Hennessey DeSena's book Preventing Plagiarism: Tips and Techniques : "In teaching students how to paraphrase, I tell them to put the text aside for a few moments and try to remember what the writer said--the ideas, the insights.  Then I ask students to try to write down these ideas.  I have them compare the two versions, their translation with the original text.  Integrity of ideas much remain intact.  If student writers change the meaning, then they will have to try again.  If they, unintentionally, appropriated exact language, then they will have to try again.  If students are unable to remember what they have read, then they should view the passage as a whole and synthesize the main points in their own words.  Encourage them to change sentence structure, in addition to altering diction.  In changing language choices, they should try to use their own words, before consulting a dictionary or thesaurus." (49). DeSena, Laura Hennessey.  2007. Preventing Plagiarism: Tips and Techniques . (Chapter 3). Urbana, IL:  NCTE.

Have students complete the "learned" column for plagiarism on the Research Skills KWL handout.

If time permits, share this school media center Website on plagiarism to review the concepts that have been covered and point out available resources.

Session Two

• Begin with a brief review of the previous session.
• Discuss the students' responses for the "know" and "want to know" columns of the fair use section of the Research Skills KWL handout.
• The Copyright Office at the Library of Congress defines fair use as "purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered ‘fair,' such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research."
• The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported." ( Factsheet on fair use of copyrighted works . U.S. Copyright Office, July 2006.)
• Using the information from Copyright Kids! Copyright Basics & FAQs , share each question with students and have them use the Think-Pair-Share strategy (think about it on your own, pair with a neighbor, share with a larger group) to answer the question.
• When students have had a chance to consider all the questions, reveal the answers from the Website .
• in school: for assignments such as term papers, class plays, presentations
• personal life: Internet downloads, podcasts, personal writings
• To expand the discussion to include music downloads, show the class the first two and a half minutes of the Ball State University Libraries video "What Do You Think about Intellectual Property?" from their Copyright for Students page.
• Have students discuss their thoughts and reactions.
• Distribute and review the Checklist for Fair Use handout.
• John is writing a science term paper on the life of a ferret. He has used two books, a general encyclopedia, and several Websites to gather his information. He has put much of the information into his own words but has used a few direct quotes, citing information that is not his own. Is his work okay according to the Checklist for Fair Use ? Why or why not? (Answer: yes—educational purposes; only a portion of information used; factual information; paraphrased; and credit given.)
• Mary and her friends like the poems of Shel Silverstein, so she copied a bunch of the poems using the school photocopier, stapled them together, and made plans to sell the booklet to anyone who wants it. Is this fair use? Why or why not? (Answer: no—the poems being reproduced are not the student's own work; entire poems used; heart of the work used; creative work; copies sold, therefore depriving author of income.)
• Uncle Marty always videotapes family events. He has put together a video CD with some of the highlights and is giving out the CDs to family members. He has asked each recipient to pay him for the cost of the blank CD so he can continue to make more copies. Is this fair use? Why or why not? (Answer: yes—originator doing the reproduction.)
• Taylor has purchased music from iTunes and placed it on her MP3 player. She also gave the music to three of her friends. Are these uses fair? Why or why not? (Answer: yes and no—The download to Taylor's MP3 player is fine because she paid for the download; however, giving the music to her friends is not because it deprives the copyright owner of income.)
• Allow time for follow-up discussion. Include in the discussion when and how to seek permission to use a copyrighted work (see the U.S. Copyright Office answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright ).
• Have the students complete the "learned" column of the fair use section of the Research Skills KWL handout.

Session Three

• Begin with a review of the previous sessions.
• Discuss students' responses for the "know" and "want to know" columns of the paraphrasing section of the Research Skills KWL handout.
• Create a class definition of paraphrasing, using the information on students KWL chart. Be sure that the class definition includes the idea of restating another person's ideas in your own words or format.
• Ask students to give examples of some of the ways they paraphrase information. Make sure the discussion includes summarizing, rewording, and using direct quotes.
• Make sure that students understand that summarizing is putting the main ideas of a piece of writing in a shortened form that uses their own words. This process can be completed by reading an entire text (paragraph, page, section, etc.) and then writing down what they remember accurately.
• In collaboration with another content area teacher, assign an unfamiliar passage from the students' textbook for students to read and summarize.
• For additional practice, introduce students to the ReadWriteThink Notetaker . Allow time for them to become familiar with the tool, perhaps having them practice together using the passage assigned in the previous step.
• Assign a new passage from the unfamiliar section, and ask the students to use the ReadWriteThink Notetaker to summarize the information.
• Make sure students understand that rewording is restating the material in their own words. Explain to students that their teachers expect them to write as students would write, not as textbooks or encyclopedias sound. Then show them how to take a statement and rewrite it using words they know and would use.
• Do one or two of the examples in the Paraphrasing Practice Powerpoint Presentation together, deciding which words should be changed and which can stay.
• Complete the remainder one at a time using Think-Pair-Share or some other small group strategy.
• Go over the students' suggestions aloud after each example, and offer comments on the results.
• An important person's words lend credibility to the writing.
• The reader will think you are very strategic to seek out an authority's idea to include in the report.
• The words and phrases in the quote simply express the idea too powerfully not to use the original.
• Ask students to consider why it is important that a paper is not one long quote or a series of quotes from a book even if credit is given.
• Provide instruction on footnotes, endnotes, or bibliography compilation if appropriate at this time, using the class textbook.
• Have students complete the "learned" portion of the Research Skills KWL handout for paraphrasing.
• Have volunteers share what they learned over the entire lesson.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• The classroom teacher and school media specialist should assess students’ learning through observation and anecdotal notetaking on participation and class discussions.
• Test students’ understanding by choosing a three-paragraph passage from the class textbook, and asking each student to demonstrate the following skills: summarize paragraph one; paraphrase paragraph two; and choose a significant quotation from paragraph three, citing it correctly.
• Calendar Activities
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This document is a code of best practices that helps educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use.

Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows students to organize up to five levels of information.

This tool allows students to create an online K-W-L chart. Saving capability makes it easy for them to start the chart before reading and then return to it to reflect on what they learned.

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• Kindergarten K

Paraphrasing Text and Information

With our Paraphrasing Text and Information lesson plan, students learn how to properly paraphrase text and how to identify when texts are plagiarized.

Description

Additional information.

Our Paraphrasing Text and Information lesson plan teaches students strategies for accurately and concisely paraphrasing text. During this lesson, students are asked to first write a passage describing their evening at home from the time they arrived home from school until you went to sleep and then share it with a classmate; they then paraphrase each other’s passages. Students are also asked to identify the difference between paraphrasing and plagiarism by telling why a specific passage is plagiarized and then paraphrasing it themselves.

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

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Paraphrasing Techniques for Academic Writing (EAP)

A few notes on teaching paraphrasing.

When I teach paraphrasing, I generally go over some techniques such as the list below. These techniques can provide students some tools to paraphrase successfully and avoid the overuse of quotations, or worse yet, plagiarism. Although these methods are especially useful to intermediate-level students, keep in mind that the best overall advice is to tell them to try to rewrite the idea into their own words . Some students can get too caught up in the game of changing from active to passive or finding obscure synonyms in the dictionary, and they forget that the best thing to do is ask themselves:  What does this sentence mean?  Can I rewrite it in my own words?

The chances are, if they are upper-intermediate or advanced students, then they may already be able to do this. Nevertheless, the below handout can be useful for students who don't have the flexibility yet to paraphrase on their own.

Five Paraphrasing Techniques

(Handout download:  paraphrasing-techniques-eap.docx )

Approximately 80% of low-income families will be assisted by the proposed `free lunch' program. (Health Canada, 2015)

Techniques:

1. Use Synonyms

According to Health Canada, roughly 80% of poor families will be helped by the suggested `free lunch' campaign .

2. Change from Active to Passive Voice

According to Health Canada, the suggested `free lunch' campaign will help roughly 80% of poor families.

3. Change from Positive to Negative

According to Health Canada, only roughly twenty percent of poor families will not benefit from the program.

4. Change Word Forms

According to Health Canada, the suggested `free lunch' campaign will provide assistance to roughly 80% of poor families.

5. Change the Order of Information

The suggested `free lunch' campaign will provide assistance to roughly 80% of poor families according to Health Canada .

Finally, after using the aforementioned techniques we have gone from this quotation:

to this paraphrased sentence:

The suggested `free lunch' campaign will provide assistance to roughly 80% of poor families according to Health Canada.

• Does the paraphrased sentence contain the same meaning as the original? Yes
• Have we referenced the source of the information? Yes
• Overall, have we avoided plagiarism by paraphrasing sufficiently? Yes

All the answers are 'Yes', which means we have paraphrased well.

- Copyright Matthew Barton of Englishcurrent.com

• The Difference between Patchwriting and Paraphrasing

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eslwriting.org

A panoply of teaching resources.

Learn Paraphrase Writing

Do you want to improve your essay writing skills?

If yes, learn paraphrasing. It is a skill that will upgrade your writing abilities.

Here is a free six lesson e-course. This self-study course can help you write better sentences, paragraphs and essays. I promise.

Who should take this e-course? Four groups of people. They are ESL students with intermediate to advanced English comprehension who:

• need better writing skills
• plan to take a TOEFL or IELTS test
• want to increase English writing abilities quickly
• dream of studying in a western university

Learn Writing Skills

This e-course teaches six kinds of paraphrase writing skills. Each skill is taught in a separate lesson posted on eslwriting.org.

Here are the six skills and links to the lessons.

• Lesson 1: Synonyms . Use words and phrases with a similar meaning.
• Lesson 2: Voice . Change the sentence from active voice to passive.
• Lesson 3: Nominalization . Change nouns to verbs.
• Lesson 4: Conjunctions . Combine two sentence with conjunctions.
• Lesson 5: Clauses .  Join two sentence with relative clauses and appositives.
• Lesson 6: Definitions . Replace a word with its meaning.

What is Paraphrase Writing?

Paraphrasing is a reading and writing skill. Read a sentence or paragraph and then write the same ideas using your words.

Paraphrasing is not copying. Good paraphrasing shows you understand other people’s ideas and can write them in a way that makes sense to you.

Paraphrasing Helps Essay Writing

Paraphrasing helps build writing skills in many areas. In this e-course, the English lessons will help you to:

• improve vocabulary power
• learn different sentence patterns
• expand knowledge of expressions
• develop your own writing style

Paraphrase writing is an important reading and writing skill for students in almost every English-speaking country. It’s hard to write a good high school or university essay without paraphrasing skills. Believe me, I know.

Research and Results

I believe paraphrasing is a great writing skill. Other people agree. Here’s an example.

A paraphrasing test was done by the University of Kansas in the United States. Researchers found that students improved reading comprehension after learning paraphrasing skills.

Before learning how to paraphrase, students were given a reading comprehension test. Their test score was 48 percent. After learning how to paraphrase, the reading score went up to 84 percent. That’s a big increase. (Some details about the research are available here .

Download the Worksheets

Read the lessons and try the exercises. Each lesson has a link so you can download the writing worksheets.

A note about printing. The worksheets are formatted for A4 page size (the standard size in Asia). Printing will work on letterhead (the US standard ) but the font might look a little small.

19 thoughts on “Learn Paraphrase Writing”

• Pingback: Why You Need to Learn Paraphrase Writing | eslwriting.org

Thanks. I look forward to receiving the lessons

• Pingback: Learn Paraphrase Writing #1 | eslwriting.org

You’re welcome Kate.

I hope you try the lessons and write some of your answers (or your students’ answers) here in the comments section.

Good Morning Rob

Thanks for providing these resources for free. Just what I’m looking for to prepare a Chinese class of struggling writers for a TOEFL test.

Good karma to you

Teaching in Japan.

Hi, I am a TOEFL writing teacher in Korea, and I’ve been looking for some paraphrasing resources for my students. I think your worksheets are very well organized and explained. I am wondering if I can use the worksheets provided here in my class. Please let me know. Thank you.

Awesome article.

Wonderful. Let me know how to download

Wanted to let you know your work is still be used — it’s perfect for TOEFL training!

Thank you for your work!

Now i am doing thesis for my master degree, but i am not clear how to paraphrase from the original papers or references.Can you tell me more detail about it. thanks in advance.

Hi ESLwriter,

I am doing my student teaching right now and I would like to use some of your worksheet. Can you please let me know how I can obtain some copies? Thank you very much for your help.

I am a teacher of ESE and ELL students who is looking for an easier way to help my high school students effectively use paraphrasing in their writing.

The lessons look very useful. I am trying to teach my students not to copy word for word when they are asked comprehension questions on a reading.

These lessons look very useful. I am trying to teach my students not to copy word for word when they are answering comprehension questions on a reading.

Hi, How can I get access to the paraphrasing worksheet?

Elisa Arceri

Awesome stuff

After a few weeks of teaching Business Reading, I’m realizing many of my students have a bad habit of copying answers exactly from the reading materials. I find paraphrasing skills are not only good for improving writing, but also great for improving reading comprehension, therefore we’re going to take a break from topical business lessons and look at paraphrasing a bit. Thank you so much for all these resources!

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Module 2: Reading Strategies

Summarizing and paraphrasing, learning objectives.

• Summarize a passage of reading
• Paraphrase a passage of reading

Have you ever heard, “the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else”?

Writing a summary of a source is a very similar process to teaching someone the content—but in this case, the student you’re teaching is yourself.

Summarizing , or condensing someone else’s ideas and putting it into your own shortened form, allows you to be sure that you’ve accurately captured the main idea of the text you’re reading. When reading, summarizing is helpful for checking your understanding of a longer text and remembering the author’s main ideas. When writing, summarizing is critical when reviewing, writing an abstract, preparing notes for a study guide, creating an annotated bibliography, answering essay questions, recording results of an experiment, describing the plot of a fictional work or film, or writing a research paper.

How to Write Summary Statements

Use these processes to help you write summary statements:

• Underline important information and write keywords in the margin.
• Record ideas using a two-column note-taking system. Record questions you have about the text concepts in the left column and answers you find in the reading in the right column.
• Identify how concepts relate to what you already know.
• Add examples and details

For retaining key ideas as you read, write a summary statement at the end of each paragraph or section. For capturing the major ideas of the entire work, write a summary paragraph (or more) that describes the entire text.

Tips for Summary

For longer, overall summary projects that capture an entire reading, consider these guidelines for writing a summary:

• A summary should contain the main thesis or standpoint of the text, restated in your own words. (To do this, first find the thesis statement in the original text.)
• A summary is written in your own words. It contains few or no quotes.
• A summary is always shorter than the original text, often about 1/3 as long as the original.  It is the ultimate fat-free writing. An article or paper may be summarized in a few sentences or a couple of paragraphs. A book may be summarized in an article or a short paper. A very large book may be summarized in a smaller book.
• A summary should contain all the major points of the original text , and should ignore most of the fine details, examples, illustrations or explanations.
• The backbone of any summary is formed by crucial details (key names, dates, events, words and numbers). A summary must never rely on vague generalities.
• If you quote anything from the original text, even an unusual word or a catchy phrase, you need to put whatever you quote in quotation marks (” “).
• A summary must contain only the ideas of the original text. Do not insert any of your own opinions, interpretations, deductions or comments into a summary.

You can view the transcript for “Summarizing” here (opens in new window) .

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is the act of putting an author’s ideas into your own words. When reading, paraphrasing is helpful for checking your understanding of what you read as well as remembering what you read. When writing, paraphrasing is an important skill to have when constructing a research paper and incorporating the ideas of others alongside your own.

Click to view the transcript for “Paraphrasing” here (opens in new window) .

paraphrasing : rewriting a passage of text in your own words

• Modification, adaptation, and original content. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• PQRST Script. Provided by : Lethbridge College. Located at : http://www.lethbridgecollege.net/elearningcafe/index.php/pqrst-script . Project : eLearning Cafe. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Summarizing. Provided by : Excelsior College. Located at : https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/what-to-do-after-reading/summarizing/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Why Use Quotes?. Authored by : The News Manual. Provided by : Media Helping Media. Located at : http://www.mediahelpingmedia.org/training-resources/journalism-basics/659-how-to-use-quotes-in-news-stories-and-features . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• How to Write an A-plus Summary of a Text. Authored by : Owen M. Williamson. Provided by : The University of Texas at El Paso. Located at : http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl0310/summaryhints.htm . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

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Paraphrasing

Seventh graders practice paraphrasing. As a class, they review previous lessons and discuss the difference between paraphrasing and plagiarism. Students begin by paraphrasing sentences orally and then they complete a worksheet, paraphrasing sentences in writing.

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Love is part of the lesson plan in ‘the midnight romance in hagwon’.

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Wi Ha-jun and Jung Ryeo Won play fellow Hagwon instructors.

Seo Hye-jin is a beloved instructor at one of the city’s best hagwons, Korea’s after-school academies that extend test prep well into the night. She’s not only an academic star, but she’s gracious when dealing with overwrought parents or upset students. Hye-jin, played by Jung Ryeo-won, cares so much about her students that she will even discuss grades with their public school teachers, if asked. That’s exactly what she does in the Korean drama The Midnight Romance in Hagwon , although the teacher she visits does not treat her with much respect.

The teacher does not approve of hagwons. Entry into the best Korean universities —which can improve the odds of landing a good job—is highly competitive. Schools and hagwons both focus on preparing students for these entry exams, but they don’t always use the same methods.

Lee Joon-ho, played by Wi Ha-jun, is the epitome of a hagwon success story. A former student of Hye-jin’s, he attended a top university and has a good job at a respected company. He’s one of the students that Hye-jin is most proud of, partly because he demonstrates the value of choosing the right hagwon.

He’s thankful for her part in his success and one day stops by the academy to reminisce. They’re obviously happy to see each other and promise to stay in touch. Still, she’s surprised when he shows up within days to take the recruitment test for hagwon instructors. It seems like a bad idea and she tries to talk him out of it. He’s already achieved success and working at a hagwon is not always easy. You won’t have time for anything, she tells him. You won’t even have time to date.

No worries there. He’s not changing careers for any of the conventional reasons. He just wants to be closer to Hye-jin and if she likes him too there will be plenty of time to date. Still, the relationship he dreams of might prompt some controversy. Even though he’s no longer her student, she’s at least a decade older than he is. K-drama leads usually have to overcome obstacles to find love and, given the unexpectedly entertaining chemistry between these lead actors, the age difference should be an easy hurdle to overcome.

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The Midnight Romance in Hagwon is an enjoyable romance in an interesting educational setting that can perhaps provide insight into the lengths that some students—and their parents—will go to achieve their academic dreams.

Both Jung and Ha have a varied resume that includes a few previous romantic roles. Ha previously appeared in Squid Game, Good and Evil, Little Women, and Romance Is A Bonus Book. Jung recently appeared in Wok of Love, Diary of a A Prosecutor and May It Please The Court. The Studio Dragon drama is directed by Ahn Pan-seok, who directed the successful romance dramas One Spring Night, Something In The Rain, and Secret Affair . It aired on tvN in South Korea and airs on Viki.com in the U.S.

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