Condensing Meanings Through Nominalization

Let's talk nominalization in the WIDA ELD Standards. Did you know that in earlier grades nominalization is just vocabulary words students use like evaporation, multiplication, revolution? However, starting in grade 5, students should be explicitly taught how to create more dense writing by nominalizing adjectives, clauses, and verbs? To find all the instances of nominalization, go to GLC 4-5 and boom there they are. Don't forget to also look in the Proficiency Level Descriptors, end of level 6, grades 4-5. It's a sign of a mature writer when students can replace their long clauses with one noun.

We looked at the plant, and we saw that it had a green coloring inside its leaves that helps it make its own food. → Chlorophyll helps the plant make its own food.

Nominalization is also in the Language Charts. I expressed my concern over this tool because it could potentially replace the 2020 ELD Standards, similar to how the Can Dos replaced the 2012 Edition (I wrote my dissertation on the topic). Instead, we need pedagogical tools, so my blog serves exactly that purpose.

Student language goals referring to Nominalization are mentioned in the Language Expectations as well as Proficiency Level Descriptors. 

In the Language Expectations for Language Arts, Inform, Grades 4-5:

• Students will construct informational texts that develop coherence and cohesion throughout through nominalizations to represent abstract concepts (p. 115)

In the Language Expectations for Science, Explain, Grades 4-5:

• Develop reasoning to show relationships between evidence and claims through nominalizations to represent abstract concepts (condensation) (p. 123).

In the Language Expectations for Social Studies, Explain, Grades 4-5 

• Generalize probable causes and effects of developments or events through… [....] nominalizations to summarize events and name abstract phenomenon (city expansion) (p. 126)

Nominalization in the Proficiency Level Descriptors 

Discourse Level: Density Row: Interpretive Mode

• Understand how ideas are elaborated or condensed through…expanded noun groups with a wide variety embedded clauses and compacted noun groups (nominalization: she stood up to bullies = her courage) (p. 136)

Discourse Level: Density Row: Expressive Mode

• Elaborate or condense ideas through: Flexible range of types of elaboration that includes embedded clauses and condensed noun groups (elaborating: a sweet sap that turned into a delicious syrup after hours of boiling and condensing through nominalization: this tedious process) (p. 137)

What is Nominalization?

Nominalization is a linguistic process where verbs, adjectives, or even entire clauses are transformed into nouns or noun phrases. While it might sound technical, it's a fundamental aspect of academic and formal writing that allows for significant condensation of meaning and increased lexical density.

Why Teach Nominalization?

For students, particularly as they progress into more complex academic and scientific texts, understanding and utilizing nominalization offers several key benefits:

1. Reading Comprehension:
   • Unpacking Dense Information: Many scientific and academic texts heavily rely on nominalizations to pack a lot of information into a small space. Teaching students to identify these "power nouns" and trace them back to their original, more expanded meanings (e.g., "emission" from "to emit") helps them decode complex sentences and grasp core concepts more effectively. This is crucial for identifying main ideas and understanding cause-and-effect relationships presented concisely.
   • Recognizing Formality and Objectivity: Nominalization often contributes to the formal and objective tone prevalent in academic writing. By understanding this, students can better interpret the intent and style of the text.
2. Writing Development:
   • Conciseness and Precision: Nominalization allows students to express complex ideas with fewer words, leading to more concise and precise writing. This is especially valuable in scientific writing, where clarity and economy of language are paramount. For example, replacing "The students discussed the topic" with "The discussion of the topic..." can set up a more formal and objective tone.
   • Achieving a Mature, Academic Voice: As students mature as writers, they are expected to move beyond simple subject-verb-object structures. Nominalization enables them to create more sophisticated sentence structures, enhancing the flow and intellectual weight of their arguments. It allows for the focus to shift from the actor to the action or concept itself.
   • Building Cohesion: Nominalizations can be used to refer back to previously stated information in a cohesive way, linking ideas across sentences and paragraphs smoothly.

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Types of Nominalization to Highlight (Figure 1):

• Verb to Noun: (e.g., create → creation, discuss → discussion, observe → observation)
• Adjective to Noun: (e.g., beautiful → beauty, sensitive → sensitivity, fast → speed)
• Clause to Noun Group: (e.g., because it was too hot → the reason for the heat, didn't have enough water → lack of water)

By actively teaching students to both unpack nominalizations in reading and employ them strategically in their writing, we equip them with a powerful linguistic tool essential for navigating and producing sophisticated academic discourse. It's about moving from simply describing actions to naming and analyzing concepts.

Figure 1. Forming Nominalization: turning verbs, conjunctions, adjectives, and clauses into a noun (Humphrey, Westerlund, Malin, (in preparation). WIDA Standards Teacher Language Toolkit. Routledge).

Here are a couple of activities to try to do with students. These activities apply to Reading and Writing. Identifying nominalization in reading is a powerful metalinguistic strategy for increasing reading comprehension.

Understanding Nominalization: The "Word Short-Cut" Power!

Think of nominalization like finding a "short-cut word" that packs a lot of meaning into a smaller space. Sometimes, we can take an action word (verb) or a describing word (adjective) or even a whole idea and turn it into a powerful "naming word" (noun). This makes writing sound more grown-up and clear, especially in science!

Part 1: Reading Comprehension Activities (Finding the Short-Cut)

Goal: Help students recognize when writers use nominalization to condense ideas, improving their ability to grasp main ideas quickly.

Activity 1: "Spot the Power Noun!"

Concept: Focuses on recognizing nominalized verbs or adjectives that summarize an action or quality within a short passage, and visually connecting them to the longer phrase they condense.

Examples for Activity:

1. Bats and Echolocation "Bats use a special sense called echolocation. They emit high-pitched sounds that bounce off objects. The emission of these sounds helps bats 'see' in the dark. Without this, they would struggle to find food."
   • Your Turn: Draw an arrow from "emission" → "They emit high-pitched sounds"
2. Magnetism and Force "When you bring two magnets close, they attract each other, or they push apart. This attraction or repulsion is a fundamental force of nature. Scientists study the forces between magnets."
   • Your Turn: Draw an arrow from "attraction" → "they attract each other"
3. The Compass and Earth's Magnetism "A compass needle is very sensitive to Earth's magnetic field. Its sensitivity allows it to point North. This helps explorers find their way across vast lands."
   • Your Turn: Draw an arrow from "sensitivity" → "is very sensitive to Earth's magnetic field"

Activity 2: "The Cause & Effect Decoder"

Concept: Helps students understand how nominalization can summarize reasons and comparisons in short passages, focusing on condensing "because" or "difference" statements within scientific contexts.

Examples for Activity:

1. Sonar in Submarines "Submarines use sonar to map the ocean floor. They can do this because sound waves travel well underwater. The reason for sonar's effectiveness is how well sound travels in water."
   • Your Turn: Draw an arrow from "reason" → "sound waves travel well underwater"
2. Magnetic Poles "Magnets have two poles, North and South. A North pole is different from a South pole in how it acts with other magnets. One difference between a North and South pole is their magnetic behavior."
   • Your Turn: Draw an arrow from "difference" → "A North pole is different from a South pole"

Activity 3: "The Clause Compressor!"

Concept: Focuses on identifying and explaining how a longer descriptive clause in a passage is condensed into a concise noun group, helping students understand the main idea more efficiently in science texts.

Instructions for Students:

1. Let's read this text together and draw arrows between words like it, they, its.
2. Then find the word echo. What does the word echo refer to?

Part 2: Writing Activities (Making Your Writing More Condensed)

Goal: Help students practice nominalization to make their own writing more concise, formal, and mature.

Activity 4: Verb-to-Noun Power-Up!

Concept: Practice changing verbs into their noun forms to create more formal or condensed sentences within a short context.

Instructions for Students:

"Rewrite the sentences in these stories. Instead of using the verb, use a noun form of that verb to make the story sound more grown-up and clear. Use the help box if you need!"

Help Box:

• create → creation
• draw → drawing
• adjust → adjustment
• believe → belief
• release → release
• care → care

Examples for Activity:

1. The Inventor's Idea "The young inventor worked day and night. She was ready to create her newest robot. Her friends were excited to see her _______ of the robot."
   • Your Turn: Fill in the blank with the noun form of "create."
2. A Friendly Puppy "Our new puppy likes to draw on the floor with his muddy paws! His _______ are all over the kitchen, but we still love him."
   • Your Turn: Fill in the blank with the noun form of "draw."

Activity 5: Adjective-to-Noun Supercharge!

Concept: Practice changing adjectives into their noun forms to describe qualities concisely within a short passage.

Instructions for Students:

"Rewrite the sentences in these stories. Instead of using the adjective, use a noun form of that adjective to make the story shorter and more descriptive."

Help Box:

• beautiful → beauty
• fast → speed
• speedy → velocity (a fancier word for speed!)
• happy → happiness

Examples for Activity:

1. The Ocean View "From the mountain, the ocean looked very beautiful. The _______ of the blue water stretched for miles, making everyone feel calm."
   • Your Turn: Fill in the blank with the noun form of "beautiful."
2. The Race Car Driver "The race car driver was incredibly fast. His car's amazing _______ helped him win every race."
   • Your Turn: Fill in the blank with the noun form of "fast."

Activity 6: The Sentence Shrinker!

Concept: Practice taking a longer idea (often spread across multiple clauses) and condensing it into a tighter noun phrase within a passage. This is the most challenging, but shows the power of nominalization for real writing.

Instructions for Students:

"Read the longer story parts. Can you rewrite the second part of each story using a special 'sentence-shrinker' noun phrase to make it much shorter and clearer? Think about what the main idea is, and try to find one or two key words for that idea."

Examples for Activity:

1. Helping the Community "Our town wanted to help families who didn't have enough food. They started a program for people who didn't have something to eat. This program helped solve the _______ in our community."
   • Your Turn: How can you shorten "didn't have something to eat" into a noun phrase to fill the blank? (Think about "lack")
2. Learning About Animals "We studied two different animals: a bird and a fish. We wanted to see how they were different in what they ate and how they moved. The lesson focused on the _______ between the bird and the fish."
   • Your Turn: How can you shorten "different in what they ate and how they moved" into a noun phrase to fill the blank? (Think about "differences")

At your service,

Ruslana