In ParaFLY, students use a complex reading task such as a primary source or an informational text to paraphrase. The teacher guides the students one paragraph at a time, having them reword important components of the sentences. Students are challenged to adjust the sentence structure while preserving the meaning of the text. As a bonus, ParaFLY ensures students are grappling with high-level, text-based content in a very complete manner, like what you would want them to accomplish by annotating, but with even higher levels of success and with a high degree of control for the teacher. The ParaFLY protocol is a modified version of the Random Emoji Power Paragraph EduProtocol.
You will need the following:
- Informational text or a primary source that students will paraphrase on the fly.
- A quiz program: We suggest Socrative for this EduProtocol.
Set Up Socrative
Start up a Socrative Short Answer quiz. Socrative Short Answer quizzes literally take 5-10 seconds to set up. You may use the Socrative Short Answer quizzes for all kinds of one sentence, open ended assignments.
Academic Goals
- Paraphrase without relying heavily on the original worlds of the author, demonstrating a true understanding of the text.
- Practice anti-plagiarism skills by altering the original words and structure by providing credit to the original author.
- Teach students to use Rewordify.com so that they don't have to do all the heavy lifting. Rewordify.com helps with reading comprehension and vocabulary development by simplifying English to a lower reading level.
- Most Google Books offer the introduction or prologue for free. Ask your students to paraphrase challenging texts that are 5-8 pages in length and have 4-7 important main ideas.
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To prepare for a ParaFLY, create an open-ended question in a quiz program such as Socrative (Socrative allows for a voting feature).
Instructions
- As always, start with some fun content first, such as the history of hamburgers or tacos. These first rounds of fun practice are key to all students mastering the ParaFLY skill-set.
- Share one paragraph of a primary source or informational text with students. This is the key to keeping it moving.
- Launch a one-question, short answer quiz in Socrative. Students will type their answers in Socrative. When students have completed the paraphrasing task, they hit submit. When everyone is done, select Start Vote in Socrative and the students can read everyone's paragraph. It's great for them to immediately admire one another's work. And the teacher can give pointers immediately. The Start Vote option in Socrative is magical because all the students see all the work immediately--no "collecting" or handing in.
- Monitor student paraphrasing and provide feedback in real time.
- Repeat for 2-3 more paragraphs, sharing one paragraph at a time. Note: As students gain paraphrasing skills, allow them to add one complete sentence from the text with "as mentioned in the article" or with a parenthetical citation, for example, (Moler, 2021).
- Have students summarize what they learned today.
- Introduce paraphrasing with fun, less stressful reading.
- Think aloud with students to model the process.
- Only show the part of the document the students are paraphrasing, one paragraph at a time.
It may be helpful to work through samples together with English language learners so that students can see how we are rearranging existing words and adding new words and synonyms to recreate the meaning in our own words. Use a program such as Socrative so students can see the paraphrasing examples in real time. These examples and timely feedback are essential for ELLs to get the most out of paraphrasing. You can also provide your ELLs a list of vocabulary from the reading, or sentence starters, to help with paraphrasing.
Adapting for AP
Using the ParaFLY EduProtocol makes it easier for teachers to focus on the historical thinking skills of sourcing and situating. Teachers provide excerpts from documents or speeches, and students practice identifying and explaining the source's point of view, purpose, historical context, and/or audience. Teachers can also ask students to explain any limitations to the use of a source.
Modifications: Jigsaw with ParaFLY
Use ParaFLY to facilitate jigsawing through an important speech. Give students sections of the speech, allow them to listen to an audio version of the speech or view the video (if available), or access the transcript and have them paraphrase the author's point of view.
