Literacy Activity 3 - Nominalisation

Nominalisation - Photosynthesis and Respiration [Stage 4]

 * Main focus: LW3a. identify the materials required by multicellular organisms for the processes of respiration and photosynthesis
 * Additional outcomes and content statements:
 * LW3 Multicellular organisms contain systems of organs that carry out specialised functions that enable them to survive and reproduce.

Activity Outline
In this lesson, students will begin learning about the processes of photosynthesis and respiration and how these processes contribute to living systems in order to keep ecosystems alive. Because this concept may be difficult or intimidating for a stage 4 student encountering it at this level, the use of ‘nominalisation’ will be used as a literacy teaching technique.

Nominalisation involves the transformation of a sentence by converting the verbs to nouns. Once the verbs are converted, words may need to be rearranged in order for the sentence to make sense. By picking out the verbs in a scientific statement, students can make clear what they key aspects of the sentence are.

Students will be given a revision on what verbs and nouns are and following this, will be given a quick exercise sheet in which they are to change verbs to nouns. After this, they will be given a sheet featuring a few sentences about photosynthesis and respiration (See PDF ). Students are to convert these sentences using nominalisation.

Nominalisation can be particularly useful in science. Firstly, it helps break down more complex scientific terms into terms that may be more common. In this way, terms specific to the content may be contextualised to create a better understanding in students. Secondly, by transforming the structure of a sentence without changing its meaning, students will begin to observe and associate the relevance of key points within the syllabus. For example, a statement like “diubgfiunsiundfg” may be hard for a year 7/8 student to understand on first read. However, after reading it a number of times in order to nominalise it, and then transforming all the verbs, the student may have a better grasp on what the sentence is trying to portray.

Differentiation and Considerations

 * Lower acheiving students may have forgotten or be unsure  about the concepts of nouns and verbs and how to convert them. The teacher should roam the classroom and ensure these students are on track, providing assistance where necessary. Refer to this teacher resource in order to better assist these students