Transcript (nominalisation). - WritingSecondarySubjects

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feedback on between session tasks
nouns
nominalisation
articles
adjectives
noun groups
varying sentence beginnings
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Most Important Point
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What was one point from the reading ‘Learning to use’ and
‘Learning about’ language that resonated with you or that was
surprising or new to you ?
Strategies trialled
◦ Observations, ideas, resources
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Nouns are words used to represent people, places,
ideas and things. A noun answers the question
“Who?” or “What?”
There are different types of nouns:
•Common nouns (girl, egg, classroom)
•Proper nouns (Sam, Wagga Wagga)
•Collective nouns (crowd, swarm, team)
•Abstract nouns (sadness, love, wonder)
There are different types of nouns. For example:
•Concrete/abstract nouns
•Particular/general nouns
•Everyday/technical nouns
•Objective/subjective nouns
•Literal/metaphorical nouns
Ref “A Grammar Companion” pg 23-25
Common (or concrete) nouns – these nouns name the
tangible and visible things eg sand, chair, boy, town, house.
Abstract nouns – these nouns name things that cannot be
touched or seen such as ideas or concepts or feelings eg
memory, honesty, justice, love, luck, prevention, research,
issue, factor, process.
An important shift in students’ learning is from the
concrete to the abstract. This shift into abstraction is a
major challenge for students who are used to dealing
with concrete, physical experiences.
(Abstract nouns are particularly effective in persuasive
texts as a rhetorical device)
For example
People are damaging the ecosystems of aquatic plants and
animals by doing many things that are harmful. They dump
rubbish in ponds, creeks, rivers, lakes and even the ocean. They
use fertilisers to help plants grow but when it rains the nutrients
from the fertilisers are washed into the waterways so that algae
grow and the water plants and animals die. People are destroying
the habitat of these plants and creatures and fragmenting the
places where they live. There are now fewer fish to catch because
of the overfishing of local species.
The main factors adversely affecting aquatic ecosystems
include the inappropriate disposal of rubbish, nutrient or
sediment runoff, habitat destruction and fragmentation, and
depletion of local species through overfishing.
When we are dealing with familiar, personal experiences, we
tend to use noun groups that refer to particular people, places
and things (eg mum, the lady next door, our house, this ant,
my dog Toby, our Toyota). Particular nouns are often found in
recounts of personal experience, stories and descriptions.
As students progress through school, however, they need to
be able to move from the particular to the general, referring to
classes of things rather than a particular individual (eg
transport as opposed to ‘our station wagon’; domestic
animals as opposed to ‘Toby”; community workers as
opposed to ‘Mrs Thomas’; mountain ranges as
opposed to ‘Mt Keira’).
General nouns are more likely to be found in informative texts
(such as information reports, explanations) and persuasive texts
(expositions and discussions).
When students are learning about concepts that are specific
to a certain field of study, they need to use technical
terminology that is precise and unambiguous (eg digit,
haiku, vertebrate, rectangle, carbon dioxide, secondary
sources, modality). A technical noun is one that has been
tightly defined within a particular discipline so that people
working within that discipline can share knowledge
efficiently and precisely.
Students need to learn the technical language of the
specialist disciplines.
Activity
How Evolution Works- Find technical words in the article.
Vocabulary - precise/topical and technical language
In using nouns, we can be objective and impartial, or we
can be more subjective and judgemental. Students need to
identify when a text is attempting to persuade them to a
particular point of view. This often happens through the
choice of nouns made by the speaker or writer (eg
obsession, mongrel, eyesore, monstrosity, cult, destruction).
Subjective nouns are often found in texts which seek to
persuade (eg exposition, discussion, advertisements,
editorials, stories).
The literal meaning is the definition in the dictionary.
Sometimes, however, we represent one thing by referring to
it metaphorically as something else. This is one way of
extending and enriching meaning. For example:
a) The Beach
The beach is a quarter of golden fruit,
A soft ripe melon sliced to a half-moon curve,
Having a thick green rind of jungle growth;
And the sea devours it with its sharp, sharp white teeth.
William Hart-Smith
b) ‘Plastic is the new visible face of ocean pollution.’
(Plastics in the Ocean article, ELLA)
As students progress through school, we would expect
a movement:
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from the particular towards the general
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from the everyday towards the technical
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from the concrete to the abstract
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from the literal to the metaphorical
Activity
What types of noun do different types of writing require?
For example in 2012 NAPLAN Year 7:
 Persuasive (p 2, 8)
 Informative (p 3, p 5, p9)
 Imaginative (p 4, p 6, p 7)
As students move into later primary and secondary school,
‘they will encounter and create texts that are characteristic of
the kinds of written texts that require careful crafting and
reflection. Such texts are typically quite dense and contain
high levels of nominalisation and abstraction.’
(A New Grammar Companion pg 160)
Nominalisation is a way of making a text more compact and
‘written’ by changing verbs (and other words) into nouns.
Instead of saying, for example, “When you heat a liquid it
can change into a gas. When the gas cools it returns to a
liquid.” we could use nominalisations:
“Vaporisation is followed by condensation.”
(A Grammar Companion pg 21)
• the process of forming a noun or noun group from a verb,
conjunction, adjective or clause
• The agent is removed so the writing becomes more
objective, compact and abstract
eg destroy destruction
people who develop land for profit
developers
Nominalisation of a verb:
eg Water vapour condenses when the air temperature is reduced.
Condensation results from a reduction in air temperature.
Nominalisation of a clause:
eg Students like using mobile phones so much they spend
too much money on them.
The popularity of mobile phones has led to unnecessary
expense.
More examples
eg Before preparing the benches you should clean and
sanitize them so that they don’t become cross contaminated.
Before preparation the benches should be cleaned and
sanitized to avoid cross contamination.
eg You should prepare the chicken within 20 minutes in case
binary fission occurs and bacteria grows.
The chicken should be prepared within 20 minutes
to prevent binary fission and the growth of bacteria.
More spoken-like
More written style
before preparing …
before preparation …
don’t become cross
contaminated …
to avoid cross
contamination
and bacteria grows …
and the growth of bacteria
Forming nominalisations
Nominalisations can be formed by adding a suffix to a verb
frustrate/frustration (suffix –tion)
argue/argument (suffix –ment)
propose/proposal (suffix -al)
Nominalise these sentences:
1. She encouraged the cast and they performed brilliantly.
2. After the Romans settled Britain many roads were built.
1. She encouraged the cast and they performed brilliantly.
Her encouragement of the cast resulted in a brilliant performance.
2. After the Romans settled Britain many roads were built.
Following Roman settlement of Britain, there was much road
construction.
Activity
- Exercise 6.10 (Droga and Humphrey)
Human impact on aquatic systems
More spoken-like text:
Certain animals and plants live in the water and they interact
with each other and form communities and these communities
also interact with other non-living things and this is called an
ecosystem. But these ecosystems are being damaged
because human beings keep butting in and mucking up the
environment.
A ‘written’ version of the text
All ecosystems are having to deal with the problem of human
impact on an unprecedented scale. Aquatic ecosystems are
being increasingly damaged because human beings are
intervening irresponsibly in the natural environment.
Human impact on aquatic systems
A ‘written’ version of the text
All ecosystems are having to deal with the problem of human
impact on an unprecedented scale. Aquatic ecosystems are
being increasingly damaged because human beings are
intervening irresponsibly in the natural environment.
A very ‘written’ version of the text
The result of irresponsible human intervention in the natural
environment is increasing degradation of aquatic ecosystems.
More spoken-like text:
Certain animals and plants live in the water and they interact with each
other and form communities and these communities also interact with
other non-living things and this is called an ecosystem. But these
ecosystems are being damaged because human beings keep butting
in and mucking up the environment. (10 clauses)
A very ‘written’ version of the text
The result of irresponsible human intervention in the natural environment
is increasing degradation of aquatic ecosystems. (1 clause)
If we look at this very ‘written’ sentence, we can see the language
has been compacted in the shift from spoken to written mainly
through the use of noun groups (nominalisation).
The sentence is now very lexically dense (many content words, lexical
items: nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives) – typical of more mature
written texts.
Nominalisation is an important resource for creating abstract and
technical terms and for condensing information in texts. It is highly
valued as it can help students to sound more like experts or
authorities with the text more objective and succinct.
Nominalisation is one of the major differences between spoken
and written language.
Nominalisation becomes increasingly important as students
move through primary school into secondary school. Textbooks
and other resources used in specialised subjects such as history,
science, maths and geography use nominalisation to package
more information into sentences and increasingly, students are
expected to use nominalisation to demonstrate that they
understand the more abstract concepts in these subjects.
Nominalisation is a useful strategy for compacting information
and making texts tighter and the texts of students who can use it
effectively tend to be more highly valued. However, it has the
effect of making texts very dense and difficult to read. Students
need support in ‘unpacking’ nominalisations back to the ‘spoken’
form, for example:
habitat destruction and fragmentation
“people are destroying the habitat of plants and animals and
they are fragmenting the places where they live”
Teaching students about nominalisation is equally important in
both reading and writing as students not only need to unpack
meanings in the texts that they read but also to condense ideas in
their own writing. For example the event of getting to the
destination can be packed into the noun group the arrival.
Articles answer the question “ Which one?”
There are two kinds of articles: the definite article “the” and the
indefinite article “a / an”
The articles in English indicate the degree to which a reference to
something is general or specific. If it is a general reference, we use the
indefinite article a or an (eg We saw a whale). If it is specific we use the
definitive article the (eg The whale plunged into the water).
The prime function of articles is to signal that a noun is to follow sooner or later
eg
the brown fox
the proverbially quick brown fox
a sports car
an expensive state-of-the-art sports car.
A or AN
A is used before words beginning with a consonant SOUND and AN before
words beginning with a vowel SOUND. Therefore it is “an hour” but “a once in
a life time experience”.
An adjective is a word that describes, defines or evaluates a noun.
eg a big room, a windowless room, an awful room, a poky room.
An adjective can tell us much about the noun.
There are different types of adjectives
eg
possessive
quantity
opinion
factual
comparing
classifying
my, his, her, Sandra’s, our, their
two, many, lots of, a hundred, both
beautiful, delicious, wonderful, funny, horrible
big, old, yellow, sharp-clawed
more delicate/most delicate, best, bigger
Persian cat, air transport, plastic shoes, art lesson
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Adjectives are usually used before the noun (eg the big,
red, steam train), but this has not always been the case
and we still have expressions such as “his lady fair” and
“life eternal”.
Adjectives can also be used after the verb.
eg The building is new.
I feel uncomfortable.
Tim's backpack felt very heavy.
Which painting is famous?
The storm remained strong for several days.
Activity
Find the nouns and underline the noun groups in these
sentences (remember to include any articles, pronouns and
adjectives relating to a noun in the noun groups):
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Our National Parks protect Australia’s native fauna and flora.
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They also protect Australia’s ancient history by preserving
Aboriginal Dreamtime stories.
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Aboriginal people lived on the coast and in the harsh fiery deserts.
nouns
 nominalisation
 articles
 adjectives
 noun groups
 varying sentence beginnings
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A Grammar Companion – Beverly Derewianka PETA 2002
A New Grammar Companion - Beverly Derewianka e:lit 2011
Grammar and Meaning – Target Texts Berry, NSW 2005
Conversations about Text – Joanne Rossbridge and
Kathy Rushton e:lit 2010
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English K-6 Syllabus – Board of Studies NSW 1998
Writing and Spelling Strategies – NSW DET 2007
Aspects of Grammar – NSW DET 2006
Teaching Literacy in … series (9 books) NSW DET 1998
Working Grammar – Sally Humphrey, Kristina Love and
Louise Droga Pearson 2011
Online resources
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NAPLAN publications: Persuasive Writing Marking Guide
Teaching Strategies
To find online:
DET Intranet > School Measurement, Assessment and Reporting Toolkit
(SMART) menu right hand side > NAPLAN (left hand side menu) > Publications.
You will find the NAPLAN 2011 Persuasive Writing Marking Guide in the NAPLAN
2011 Manuals section and scroll down for teaching ideas in NAPLAN 2010
Teaching Strategies and NAPLAN 2009 Teaching Strategies.
Online resources
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BST and ELLA Marking Manuals and Teaching Strategies
- NSW DET 2004 - 2008
Aspects of Grammar – NSW DET 2006
To find online
DET Intranet > School Measurement, Assessment and Reporting Toolkit (SMART)
menu right hand side > Historical EMSAD resources (left hand side menu) > find
BST and ELLA publications on the main page to find BST and ELLA Marking
Manuals and Teaching Strategies. Scroll down on the BST publications page to
also find Aspects of Grammar.
Teaching Literacy in … series (9 books) NSW DET 1998
To find online
DET Intranet > Curriculum resources (tab along top) > Curriculum learning and
innovation centre (first website) > Support for Years 7-12 (right hand side menu)
> go to search at top right and type in in Literacy > Scroll down to Literacy
Publications > you will find the Teaching Literacy in … series at the end of the
page.
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Undertake the professional reading Getting Started with
Functional Grammar in an Upper Primary Classroom provided at
Workshop 2 with your reflections on the readings recorded in the
journal.
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Plan and implement a lesson or lesson sequence trialling ideas
to teach any of the grammar concepts presented at Workshop 1
or 2 and report back for discussion and sharing of observations,
ideas and resources with other course participants.