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By Mary

Man, paraphrasing is hard for kids. I teach sixth, and it's still hard for them. You could practice having them paraphrase some sentences you make up. It's late, so I apologize if this sounds stupid but: There is a prodigious
amount of solar radiation today--it's really hot today. Our academic pursuits have almost come to an end--school's almost over. Silly stuff like that.
Model for them how you paraphrase from a text. Give everybody a copy of what you're paraphrasing, and then just model it on the overhead. Then do another passage as a class. Best practice would probably be to have them do it

in groups after that. Give each group a paragraph to paraphrase, some markers and a sheet of butcher paper. Have each group share out when they're done. Then they can illustrate it or act it out, if you want.

Then I tell them, as we begin our research, and begin to paraphrase what we find, that they are not allowed, under any circumstances, to write down any word that they cannot define. This forces them to paraphrase much of what they read, and it also is insurance against plagiarism.

Other than that, I don't know. I would like to hear what others do. Like I said, paraphrasing is hard for them. I think it's because they really don't have much in the way of vocabulary. If you don't know many words, it's hard to think of synonyms. If we taught vocabulary more, maybe they could paraphrase better. Which leads us to a whole other problem--what's the best way to teach vocabulary? That's hard, too.