REWRITING AND APPROPRIATING LANGUAGE

The study presented in this paper analysed the texts resulting from the activity of rewriting performed by fifth graders. The analysis focused on specific text passages and wordings, following the work that was developed during the activities of reading, detailed reading and joint rewriting, implemented in accordance with the strategies proposed by the Reading to Learn programme, a genre-based approach. The study intended to determine the extent to which the pupils appropriated the language patterns highlighted in the original text and object of the work implemented during the subsequent activities. This work made available a set of paradigmatic possibilities to construct the relevant meaning. In their own individual rewriting, the pupils could reuse the version of the original text or other formulations activated during the process or combine these possibilities with their own language resources. The study also intended to analyse whether low-achieving pupils reached a similar level of reformulation and adopted similar strategies to their classmates in their individual rewriting. The results show that the participants were able to appropriate the linguistic patterns found in the original text or during the activities, to reuse them and also to modify and combine them with their own resources. Those pupils who usually experience greater difficulties in reading and writing activities revealed no significant differences compared to the other pupils and were able to perform the tasks in a similar way to their high-achieving classmates.