IB Docs (2) Team
Rewriting
A creative way to encourage students to become interested in the choices writers make is to ask them to rewrite a text or text extract. This could be done by substituting one genre for another. However, it can also be interesting to select a significant aspect of a text or text extract and rewrite just those parts that really seem to stand apart. For example, students can focus on a particular lexical cluster, the use (or absence) of figurative language, syntax, punctuation, or narrative voice. It is probably best to isolate just one or two of these things to ensure a focused, critical appraisal of language choice.
In this example (below), students had been working with an extract from Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways. The lesson aimed to extend students’ understanding of descriptive writing to establish setting, and they were asked to read the extract, annotate, and make notes in response to the following question: How does the writer, Robert Macfarlane, evoke a sense of setting and encourage his reader to pay attention to the natural world in this extract?
In the lively lesson that followed, students discussed, in pairs, and then as a whole class, a wide range of techniques Macfarlane uses in the extract. As the teacher guiding the discussion, I found it important to encourage an enjoyment of reading the extract. After all, it is rather reductive to diminish Macfarlane’s exquisite writing to a matter of technique; it is one thing to coin a metaphor, but quite another to use language exactly and exactingly in the way Macfarlane does (as the student in this example discovered!).
Then, as a homework task (limited to one hour), students were asked to identify one aspect of Macfarlane’s style; something, that is, they found particularly striking or memorable. Having done this, they were asked to rewrite only this feature of the text. To conclude the task, they were asked to compare the original text with their amended version, writing a one-paragraph reflective commentary.
Below, you can see the work of one student. Firstly, we have published the original text. Secondly, we have published the student’s altered version. Thirdly, we have published the student’s reflective commentary.
You can do this kind of activity with virtually any text or text extract. It encourages close, critical reading, and it involves an element of analytical writing. It encourages creative writing too. And, all students learn that good writing isn’t easy.
Original Text
Student's Rewritten Text
Student's Reflective Commentary
When I read the extract from Robert Macfarlane’s ‘The Old Ways’, a number of things struck me: I found the writing to be very evocative, particularly in the way Macfarlane describes the setting. Aspects of the writing that caught my attention include things like the contrasts between indoors and outdoors, and cold and heat. The use of punctuation, syntax, and alliteration add to the almost other-worldly quality of this extract. For example, when he writes ‘at first sight the field seemed flawless; flow country’, the soft ‘f’ reinforces the sense of hush and the narrator’s solitude he experiences in a quiet winter landscape. The thing that I found most interesting about this extract, however, was the use of simile and metaphor, and, now that I think about it, I feel that it is ironic that it is figurative language that makes the described landscape seem so real. For this reason, I have tried to rewrite some of Macfarlane’s similes and metaphors. I really struggled to do this well (it’s so hard!)! But, trying to do this has taught me a lot about the suggestive qualities of figurative language, and that using simile and metaphor involves much more than just randomly substituting one thing for another. Figurative language, I now think, has an expressive power to draw attention to aspects of settings, things or people.
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