Hi everyone,

Today’s post is going to be about an activity a colleague shared with us and I thought it sounded like a good idea. If you teach paraphrasing and academic writing, this post is for you.

Procedure

Put students in groups of four and then four more around those student. This is something like a circle in a circle.

The students in the inner circle are given a text which hey are asked to paraphrase. Once they are happy with their paraphrase (I suggest you give your students a word and time limit), the teacher takes away the text and asks the student to share their (paraphrased) text. The students in pairs must paraphrase the text again.

Why do this?

It is a great way to help students avoid plagiarism.

It’s a great collaborative task.

It’s more fun than writing a paraphrase on your own.

Have you tried this activity? Have you tried a different version? Let me know what you think!

Till next time…..

Jo

xx