Thursday, November 17, 2011

Paraphrase

One of the things I notice with students is that they struggle to state what a quote actually means.  A good exercise for in-class would be to ask them to paraphrase claims.

What do individual words mean?
What the most important part of a sentence?
What does it mean in context?

In classes with lots of board space, I could have students work in groups and write their paraphrases on the board, but I only have that in two of my four classes at SDSU.

I could have them do that as an in-class individual exercise, but then I would have to read what they wrote.  Aaargh.

Hmmm.  Another idea.  If I had these printed out, I could ask students to do this in the first five minutes of class, when students aren't showing up.  Worth 2 points.  One point for getting it right.  One point for being there to do it.

I like that one.

I wouldn't even need it to be printed out.  I just need to put it on power point and show the quote on the screen.  I like it!

As I think about this, I could teach the whole idea of a quotation sandwich and parenthetical with this exercise.

I can put the quote up on the screen with the author's name and the page number.  Students can introduce the quote, include the quote, add parenthetical citation, and then provide a paraphrase afterward.

This exercise would work well for RWS 100, 200, and developmental or basic writing classes.  

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