The task of rewriting in your own words

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High School English Teachers Chatboard

The task of rewriting in your own words

by Sara

Nov 26, 2011

lease know I am a teacher and one who posts to these boards often. I also tutor and this assignment was given to a 9th grade biology student. Is it me? Certainly my student is having trouble rewriting these sentences in her own words and though I can do it, it's a challenge. Her teacher has handed it back saying 'our own words were not different enough' and with my tutoring help, my student got a C!

I think I have something to learn from any of you who would be willing tackle one of these sentences.

It's also true that my student doesn't have a strong understanding of what these sentences really mean - they read rather like 'gobbletygook' to her and I have to read some of them more than once to really get what they're saying.

There are five sentences. Am I wrong? One sentence seems to me so short and to the point that it becomes almost impossible to coherently rewrite it in 'your own words'. The last sentence does not seem like a complete sentence to me and h...See Morelease know I am a teacher and one who posts to these boards often. I also tutor and this assignment was given to a 9th grade biology student. Is it me? Certainly my student is having trouble rewriting these sentences in her own words and though I can do it, it's a challenge. Her teacher has handed it back saying 'our own words were not different enough' and with my tutoring help, my student got a C!

I think I have something to learn from any of you who would be willing tackle one of these sentences.

It's also true that my student doesn't have a strong understanding of what these sentences really mean - they read rather like 'gobbletygook' to her and I have to read some of them more than once to really get what they're saying.

There are five sentences. Am I wrong? One sentence seems to me so short and to the point that it becomes almost impossible to coherently rewrite it in 'your own words'. The last sentence does not seem like a complete sentence to me and how do you rewrite 'in your own words' an incomplete sentence??

And another sentence seems to me so detailed that to chane it would be to alter its meaning.

Any insights or sample rewriting of any of these sentences would be sincerely appreciated. Maybe I'm missing something even after 20 years of teaching.

1. Microarrays were first used to study global gene expression in 1997.

2. This technology will also aid the examination of the integration of gene expression and function at the cellular level, revealing how multiple gene products work together to produce physical and chemical responses to both static and changing cellular needs.

3. The use of microarray may also speed the identification of genes involved in the development of various diseases enabling scientists to examine a much larger number of genes.

4. To date this technology has been used for a handful of applications, including response of cultured chicken cells to Marek's disease virus , where they found that MDV infection was linked to expression TSA-1, a gene important for T-cell differentiation and activation.

5. Revealing how multiple gene products work together to produce physical and chemical responses to both static and changing cellular needs. (this Internet sentence is not a complete sentence - it's difficult to rewrite a sentence when it's not complete - something is missing in this sentence.)

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