Paraphrasing - Letters to a Young Poet

great

Presentation

Paraphrasing - Letters to a Young Poet

Start

9.5(G)

9.5(D)

9.5(E)

9.5(A)

9.4(F)

9.1(D)

9.1(A)

Lesson standards

LANGUAGE OBJECTIVE

I will be able to: Use appropriate academic vocabulary related to paraphrasing in oral and written communication.

Learning Intention

Today, we will delve into the timeless wisdom of Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. We will explore the themes and ideas expressed in the text, and practice the essential skill of paraphrasing to deepen our understanding and apply it to our own writing.

Success Criteria

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

• Identify key themes and ideas in Letters to a Young Poet.
• Paraphrase excerpts from the text accurately.
• Apply paraphrasing skills to their own writing.

Reflect on a time when you received advice that had a significant impact on your life. What was the advice, and how did it affect you?

Define

When you paraphrase, you restate something in your own words while retaining the meaning and the order of the original text. Paraphrasing can help you understand unfamiliar expressions, unusual patterns of speech, and complex sentences. You can paraphrase only a few words or entire sentences and paragraphs. Paraphrasing as you read can help you monitor your comprehension. Paraphrasing is sometimes confused with summarizing. When you summarize, you provide a brief statement of the main ideas or events and the most important details. In contrast, when you paraphrase, you do not condense the text to its main ideas and most important details. Instead, you restate the entire text in your own words. A summary is much shorter than the original text, but a paraphrase is usually the same length as the original text. Whether paraphrasing or summarizing, your restatement of the text should follow a logical order that maintains the meaning of the text. *Watch StudySync Video

Vocabulary

• summarize
• verb
• to state the most important ideas, events, and details in a text in your own words

• paraphrase
• verb
• to restate an entire passage from a text in your own words

Model

Directions:

Review the Checklist for Paraphrasing below. Then read the Skill Model to examine how one student used the checklist to paraphrase text in ways that maintain the meaning and logical order in Letters to a Young Poet. As you read, identify the question from the checklist the student used for each annotation.Checklist for Paraphrasing In order to paraphrase texts in ways that maintain meaning and logical order, note the following:

• any unfamiliar vocabulary
• any confusing sentences or passages
• long, complicated sentences
• use of figurative language or technical terms that you don’t understand

Model

Paraphrase texts in ways that maintain meaning and logical order, using the following questions as a guide:

• Do I understand the meaning of the text? Always start by reading the text carefully and asking yourself what it is about.
• Which words and phrases are important to keep to maintain the meaning? Important words and phrases might include proper names, places, or statistics.
• Which words are unfamiliar? Determine the meaning of these words and find synonyms you can use in their place.
• Which figurative expressions are confusing? Put the meaning of figurative expressions in more literal language.
• Which sentences have complicated structures? Create shorter, less complicated sentences.
• Which sentences or passages are confusing? Think about what confuses you. Once you determine the meaning, paraphrase the sentences or passages in a way that clears up the confusion.
• Does my restatement of the text maintain its original meaning? Or have I missed key points or details?
• Does my restatement of the text maintain logical order?

Skill Model

Paraphrasing texts while maintaining meaning and logical order can help you monitor your comprehension of the text. Let’s look at how one reader paraphrases parts of Letters to a Young Poet while maintaining meaning and logical order: Rilke tells Kappus that his poetry lacks a unique style, although it has potential. One poem shows a hint of a personal voice, and one establishes a sort of connection with its subject, but none reveal a truly independent style yet.

Skill Model

In order to better understand and remember Rilke’s message in this section of the letter, the reader first rephrases the main idea in his own words. He then uses more concise, literal language to paraphrase Rilke’s statements about two of the poems—which had been expressed in more lengthy, figurative terms—and to restate the main idea. Throughout his paraphrase, the reader is careful to maintain a logical order and incorporate keywords from the original text that are important to maintaining meaning, such style, personal, and independent . The reader continues examining Letters to a Young Poet and paraphrases another section of text while maintaining meaning and logical order.

Rilke says that if, after an inner search, Kappus decides to give up writing, the search will not have been wasted. Rilke believes that the inner search will lead Kappus to discover other things, which Rilke hopes will be rewarding.

Skill Model

In this passage, the reader encounters a section of the text that features complex sentence structures with parentheticals and asides. First, the reader highlights the main messages. Then, he restates these messages in simpler sentences that are logically ordered and maintain the meaning of the text. Doing so helps the reader better comprehend Rilke’s advice to and wishes for Kappus.