TEACHING TIP
Paraphrase Without Plagiarism: Use
RRLC (Read, Reread, List, Compose)
Raymond P. Kettel, Danielle L. DeFauw
Stop plagiarism by using the RRLC strategy to support students’ reading and
writing development.
P
lagiarism is claiming someone else’s ideas or
information as one’s own without providing
appropriate credit (American Psychological
Association, 2017). Standard 8 of the College and
Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing
states that students must “gather relevant informa-
tion from multiple print and digital sources, assess
the credibility and accuracy of each source, and
integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism
[emphasis added]” (National Governors Association
Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State
School Officers, 2010, p. 18).
Avoiding plagiarism is a challenge because stu-
dents often do not know how to paraphrase appro-
priately—“summarize a passage or rearrange the
order of a sentence and change some of the words”
(American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 15).
Summaries reveal plagiarism when a writer stays
too close to the original source’s wording or sen-
tence structure.
The terms paraphrase and summary further con-
fuse students. A summary encompasses details of
a whole text. A paraphrase rewords and reorders
a shorter section of text. In both paraphrasing and
summarizing, a writer details a text’s content in his or
her own words, but paraphrasing emphasizes a por-
tion of a text, whereas summarizing emphasizes the
main ideas of an entire text (Driscoll & Brizee, 2013).
The Common Core State Standards require stu-
dents to (a) paraphrase beginning in grade 4 in re-
sponse to oral representations of text (e.g., read-­
aloud, media), (b) paraphrase from notes taken from
various sources in grades 5–8, (c) avoid plagiarism in
grades 6–12, and (d) use sources to respond to ques-
tions and/or take notes in grades K–5, with specified
adult support for kindergarten and grade 1 (National
Governors Association Center for Best Practices &
Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010).
Working with students and preservice teach-
ers, we believe that teaching how to paraphrase,
The Reading Teacher   Vol. 0   No. 0   pp. 1–11
summarize, and synthesize content without plagia-
rism is of paramount importance. Teachers tell stu-
dents to write content in their own words, but are
students shown how to paraphrase and summarize
appropriately?
Ray (first author) created the RRLC (read, reread,
list, compose) strategy (see Table 1). When students
use RRLC to write about text, they write from a list
of words, which helps them avoid plagiarism. This
reading–writing strategy transfers to any grade
level, especially with the use of interactive writ-
ing (Button, Johnson, & Furgerson, 1996; Roth &
Dabrowski, 2014).
Reading–Writing Connections
Shanahan (2017) argued that reading and writing
are intricately connected and can be used to support
comprehension. The stronger students’ reading com-
prehension is when they research a topic, the easier
it is for them to summarize or paraphrase content in
their own words.
Graham and Hebert (2011) conducted a meta-­
analysis of 95 studies to determine effect sizes of writ-
ing’s influence on reading comprehension. Although
writing was taught explicitly in less than half of the
studies, 94% of the studies’ outcomes revealed positive
effect sizes for grades 2–12. Types of writing that sup-
port comprehension, ordered from lowest to highest
effect size, include answering questions (0.28), taking
notes (0.45), summarizing (0.54), and extending writing
Raymond P. Kettel is an associate professor emeritus of
education at the University of Michigan–Dearborn, USA;
email rpkettel@umich.edu.
Danielle L. DeFauw is an associate professor of reading
and language arts in the College of Education, Health,
and Human Services at the University of Michigan–
Dearborn, USA; email daniellp@umich.edu.
1 doi:10.1002/trtr.1697   © 2018 International Literacy Association
 Teaching Tip

Table 1 effect size (0.82) out of the 11 writing instruction el-

RRLC Reading–Writing Strategy ements for adolescents. Shanahan (2017) supported
summarization as an effective means to respond to
Step Procedure text because summarization requires students to
think about the author’s message and purpose, iden-
Read Read, review, or scan a text to ensure
that it meets your purpose for reading, tify key details, determine how the author organized
writing, and research. the text, and analyze the text as a reader and writer.
The RRLC strategy encompasses these components.
Reread Reread the text carefully while creating
your list.
Shanahan (2017) stated that when students write
short summaries, they learn how to identify the main
List While rereading, create a bulleted list of
idea of a text or paragraph, use only pertinent infor-
words or phrases, not quotes. Each row
mation, and write about the text’s content. Longer
should not exceed three words. Use the
list to help you note pertinent details summaries expand these skills as students synthesize
from the source. research from multiple sources. Shanahan also stated
that students need to develop the “ability to adequate-
Compose Without looking at the original source,
compose a summary using only your list ly summarize information and paraphrase informa-
of words and phrases. tion from sources (avoiding plagiarism)” (slide 59).
We believe that RRLC provides teachers a tool to help
students learn how to summa-
(0.68). Similarly, the RRLC strategy rize, paraphrase, and synthesize
requires that students take notes, PAUSE AND PONDER content without plagiarism.
summarize, and synthesize writing.
Graham and Perin (2007) found ■ How do you teach students to
11 writing instruction features to paraphrase text? Plagiarism
have the highest effect sizes for ■ How can you use the RRLC strategy to Research has shown that pla-
adolescents. Writing strategies support students’ synthesizing skills? giarism is a complex problem in
(0.82) were the highest, especially higher education (Kashian, Cruz,
■ How will the RRLC strategy transfer Jang, & Silk, 2015) and second-
the self-­regulated strategy devel-
to your current literacy and content
opment (SRSD) approach, which ary education (Thomas & Sassi,
area instruction?
had an effect size of 1.14 (Harris 2011); often, students at these
& Graham, 1985, 1996). The SRSD ■ How will you formatively assess levels plagiarize unintention-
approach consists of six stag- students’ use of the RRLC strategy? ally. Writers of all ages need to
es: (1)  students use background understand plagiarism and be
knowledge and skills, (2) the class discusses writing taught how to paraphrase, summarize, synthesize,
assignments, (3) the teacher models the strategy, and cite appropriately. To avoid plagiarism, writers
(4)  students memorize the strategy’s steps, (5) stu- must refrain from copying text, give credit to authors
dents receive guided practice, and (6) students use through appropriate citing, use quotation marks, and
the strategy independently. The RRLC strategy can paraphrase (Plagiarism.org, 2017). We encourage el-
align to the SRSD procedure. ementary teachers to use the RRLC strategy to support
Teaching writing strategies using mnemonic de- students’ writing without plagiarism.
vices to support students’ planning and drafting is
helpful (e.g., De La Paz, 1999; Swain, 2006). For exam-
ple, with 66 second-­g rade students, Harris, Graham,
Implementing RRLC
and Mason (2006) used a few mnemonic devices We use the RRLC strategy with preservice teachers
within the SRSD approach, two of which were POW and elementary students. They write summaries and
(pick my idea, organize my notes, write and say paraphrase the content of fiction and nonfiction texts.
more) and TREE (topic sentence, reasons, end, ex-
amine). RRLC provides another mnemonic device Preservice Teachers
using the SRSD approach to support students’ sum- Preservice teachers chose a historic topic in chil-
marization skills. dren’s literature and used the RRLC to synthesize
Graham and Perin (2007) found that teaching content from three sources; see Zainab’s (pseud-
students to write summaries tied with the highest onym) RRLC example in Figure 1. Some preservice

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Figure 1
Preservice Teacher Zainab’s Nonfiction RRLC Example

(continued)

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Figure 1
Preservice Teacher Zainab’s Nonfiction RRLC Example (continued)

teachers chose to use the strategy throughout the
semester for fiction texts; see Zainab’s RRLC exam-
ple in Figure 2.
Elementary Students
Danielle (second author) tutored a third-­g rade stu-
dent who loved giraffes (see Figure 3). Natalina
(pseudonym) wrote the informational text in Figure 4
independently. To support her literacy development
in nonfiction writing, Danielle collected two articles
about giraffes from Newsela. See Table 2 for addi-
tional online resources (Gunning, 2017).
To teach Natalina the RRLC strategy with nonfic-
tion text, Danielle implemented the SRSD approach
(Harris & Graham, 1985, 1996):

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Figure 2
Preservice Teacher Zainab’s Fiction RRLC Example

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Figure 3 Figure 4
Natalina’s Self-­Motivated Drawing Sample Natalina’s Self-­Motivated Writing Sample

1. Danielle explained the acronym RRLC, and

she and Natalina discussed the strategy.
2. Danielle modeled the RRLC strategy as Table 2
Natalina read aloud a Newsela article Websites for Articles Available Online
(Feltman, 2016; see Figure 5).
3. They used an interactive writing lesson for Website(s) Purpose
guided practice (Roth & Dabrowski, 2014) http://www. These two kid-­friendly search
for the second online article (Defenders of kidzsearch.com engines support topic searches
Wildlife, n.d.; see Figure 6). and of appropriate content for
http://www. students.
4. Independently, Natalina used the strategy for
kidrex.org
Giraffes Are Awesome! by Lisa J. Amstutz (2015),
which she chose from myON (https://www. https://newsela. This site provides Lexile-­leveled
myon.com; see Figure 7). com current event articles for grades
2–12. Newsela Elementary
5. The summary needed revision, so follow- targets articles appropriate for
ing a writing conference, Natalina rewrote grades 2–6.
the summary to organize content (see
http:// Smithsonian’s TweenTribune
Figure 8). provides Lexile-­leveled current
tweentribune.
6. To extend the writing task, they used interac- com event articles for grades K–12 in
tive writing to create the synthesized version English and Spanish.
of the three RRLCs (see Figure  9). To do this,

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Figure 5
Natalina’s Nonfiction RRLC Modeled List and Summary

Figure 6
Natalina’s Nonfiction RRLC Guided Interactive List and Interactive Summary

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Figure 7
Natalina’s Nonfiction RRLC Independent List and Summary

Figure 8 they organized and connected pertinent de-

Natalina’s Nonfiction RRLC Revised Independent tails recorded on their lists for each text.
Summary 7. Following steps 2–4 with fiction picture books,
the RRLCs are detailed in Figures  10 (mod-
eled), 11 (guided), and 12 (independent).
Further analysis of Natalina’s independent sum-
maries revealed that plagiarism was avoided when
compared with the original sources. She wrote the
summary of the fiction text, focused only on the
main ideas, entirely in her own words.
Natalina’s list for the nonfiction text did not fol-
low the RRLC requirement of three words per bullet
at most; yet, her summary did not plagiarize, likely
because it lacked detail. However, her bulleted list
included plagiarized details (e.g., “18 ft [5.5 meters]

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Figure 9 Figure 10
Natalina’s Nonfiction RRLC Guided Interactive Natalina’s Fiction RRLC Modeled List and Summary
Synthesized Summary

as long as its legs” (Amstutz, 2015, p. 8). Natalina’s

tall,” “spots cover [a] giraffe’s body”). She made at- writing samples reveal that she needs further in-
tempts at rewriting list items in her own words: “gi- struction in reading comprehension and writing
raffes neck tall as legs” versus “A giraffe’s neck is summaries with nonfiction text.

TAKE ACTION!

 1. Collect three texts about a topic.

 2. Share with students what RRLC stands for: read, reread, list, compose.
 3. To model, quickly read (scan, review) one of the texts using a think-aloud to determine whether the text’s content
meets your purpose.
 4. To model, as you reread the article, create a list of key points; do not exceed three words for each point. Each list item
could be put on an index card.
 5. To model, compose a summary of the text using only the list or index cards that you created.
 6. To provide guided practice, allow partners to use the RRLC strategy as modeled for the second text.
 7. To provide guided practice, encourage students to share their summaries in groups.
 8. For independent practice, allow students to use the RRLC strategy independently with the third text.
 9. Encourage students to share individual summaries with others.
10. To extend writing, model how to synthesize content in a summary about all three texts. Index cards are especially
useful for organizing and connecting pertinent details from each text.

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Figure 11
Natalina’s Fiction RRLC Guided List and Summary

Figure 12
Natalina’s Fiction RRLC Independent List and Summary

Concluding Thoughts learning how to paraphrase and summarize appro-

We believe that the RRLC strategy provides teach- priately. Moving forward, students need to learn
ers another tool to empower students to express to cite sources. With continued practice in reading
themselves in their own words, the first step in and writing about fiction and nonfiction texts, stu-

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dents’ writing voices and styles will grow as they
develop their reading–writing abilities through
reading, summarizing, and synthesizing multiple
sources.
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MORE TO EXPLORE
■■ “Creating Question and Answer Books Through
Guided Research,” a ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan
by Renee Goularte: http://www.readwritethink.org/
classroom-resources/lesson-plans/creating-question-
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■■ “Exploring Plagiarism, Copyright, and Paraphrasing,” a
ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan by Maria Kardick:
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/
lesson-plans/exploring-plagiarism-copyright-
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■■ “I Used My Own Words! Paraphrasing Informational
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resources/lesson-plans/used-words-paraphrasing-
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■■ “Promoting Student-Directed Inquiry With the
I-Search Paper,” a ReadWriteThink.org strategy guide
by Scott Filkins: http://www.readwritethink.org/
professional-development/strategy-guides/
promoting-student-directed-inquiry-30783.html
■■ “Using THIEVES to Preview Nonfiction Texts,” a
ReadWriteThink.org lesson plan by Cynthia A.
Lassonde: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-
resources/lesson-plans/using-thieves-preview-
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