Posted on Wed, May 22, 2013
So the final exam is next week, and I want to do a quick review every day with my students to remind them of all of the 180 words they must know for their test. Here’s what I’ve done so far that each day takes 5-10 minutes or less:
1. Stand up until you can give me a definition. I ask all of my students to stand up (not all acquiesce right away-I still call on them), and when I say a word, the first person to raise their hand and give me a definition can sit down. The students are anxious to sit down, so it’s a quick and easy way to review.
2. Talk about characters with vocabulary words. We just finished studying The Great Gatsby in one class and are in the middle of Raisin in the Sun in another class. I asked the students to list the main characters in their book and then list vocabulary words that define each of their personality traits. They especially enjoyed using individual whiteboards to make their lists.
3. Categorize your words. Today, I asked my students to put vocabulary words in a few different categories-insults, compliments, travel/time words, responsibility words, etc. Students had to put in 10 words for each of at least three categories (they could also create their own categories). The conversations I had with students were interesting- the word decadent is a compliment when talking about decadent desserts but an insult when talking about the decadent Roman empire. My students were able to discuss the nuances of words through our category discussions-yay!
Good luck with your final review-we will play games and other activities throughout the week, but if you need a few simple ways to review-hopefully these will help. Anyone else have other simple review activities?
Common Core Standards:
Language Standard 3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts.
Language Standard 4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown words
Language Standard 5. Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meaning.
Language Standard 6. Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge
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Posted on Thu, May 16, 2013
As I look back over the school year, I want to write my reflection using “Word of the Week” words. It has been a great year for me, and I hope you have had a positive year in the classroom as well.
5. Sagacious- In high school I had to memorize the terms astute and sagacious so I simply repeated the phrase, “I am astute and sagacious” over and over again to myself until I remembered that both words meant smart. However, today, I want to celebrate the smart readers of Vocab Gal rather than myself. All of you have had such great questions, comments and ideas of your own-thank you for sharing your successes with me! You must be great teachers. Thanks especially to my new sagacious friend Becky Amarai who teaches middle school English and has shared with me how she uses my ideas in her classroom.
4. Procure/Amalgamate- I am always procuring/amalgamating new ideas from a variety of sources. My colleagues and my students are always sources of inspiration, and I feel lucky enough that I can dream up a quick new vocabulary idea, and my students are always willing to participate (okay, first period is a little recalcitrant, but they are also a little sleepy).
3. Concerted- I am so excited that my concerted efforts to encourage teachers have been working! I have gotten so many great emails this year from teachers who are trying my vocabulary ideas and having success with them. Plus, your concerted efforts to keep encourage vocabulary in the classroom is so appreciated –if not immediately by your students, they will come back eventually and tell you how much their vocabulary knowledge has helped them!
2. Dovetail- I try to make all of my lessons dovetail with current holidays and seasons to make the activities more relevant to students. I hope you have found that by keeping my vocabulary activities relevant, you can more easily excite your students into completing the work without complaint (or at least too many complaints).
1. Prattle- My dad accuses me of prattling on a bit too long when telling stories. I hope that I do not prattle too much on this blog, although I am still in disbelief that all of my prattling has helped influence teachers from around the United States and even globally, better teach their students!
Please continue to send me new inspiration and let me know how you are using the strategies I give you! I can prattle on about the multifarious benefits of studying vocabulary directly-including increased test scores, better reading fluency, more sophisticated writers etc. I can also prattle on using the vocabulary words we are studying so that students have a better understanding of the word in context. Regardless of the topic, however, I always prattle using vocabulary and hope that you are doing the same!
Common Core Standards:
Language Standard 3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts.
Language Standard 4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown words
Language Standard 5. Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meaning.
Language Standard 6. Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge
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Posted on Thu, May 09, 2013
I asked my students this week how the best reviewed their vocabulary words. One of my students, Jake, grabbed some cardstock paper and started to draw, freehand, a jigsaw puzzle. When I asked what he was going to do, he noted that he was going to draw a picture on one side of each puzzle piece, and put the word on the other side. He liked to draw individual pictures that related to the vocabulary words then link them together to form a larger picture. He could then quiz himself by looking at the picture and recalling the coordinating word or looking at the word and recalling the coordinating picture.
I really love this idea of creating and then reassembling a jigsaw puzzle to review one’s words (thanks Jake!). I am going to print out copies of the downloadable jigsaw template onto cardstock and then have each student pick one of the following options:
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Write one vocabulary word on each puzzle piece and draw a coordinating picture on the other side. Then link the pictures together so that the jigsaw puzzle has another larger image that ties together all the smaller pictures. Once you cut the pieces out from the cardstock, review the words as you recreate the finished puzzle.
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Write coordinating vocabulary words on neighboring pieces. For example, if you have the word “expunge” and the word “extirpate” (both mean to get rid of something) –put those two words next to each other. Then, on the other side of “expunge”, perhaps write “truculent” because someone who is “truculent” (angry) often “expunges” items. Once you cut the pieces out from the cardstock, review the words and their related meanings as you recreate the finished puzzle.
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Write your vocabulary words on separate puzzle pieces and then draw a lovely pictures that weaves around all of the words. On the back of each puzzle piece, write the definition of the word. Once you cut the pieces out from the cardstock, review the words as you recreate the finished puzzle.
Students love puzzles, especially spatial and kinesthetic who might not always be able to have a physical activity to do while studying words. Hopefully this is a unique enough twist for students to learn to piece words and meaning together!
Common Core Standards:
Language Standard 3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts.
Language Standard 4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown words
Language Standard 5. Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meaning.
Language Standard 6. Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge
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Posted on Wed, May 01, 2013
As the end of the school year gets closer and closer, I find my students getting a bit more apathetic-especially at 7:30 in the morning. They are not doing as well on their vocabulary quizzes and not wanting to share vocabulary sentences with the class.
These last two weeks, I have made use of three vocabulary strategies I have shared previously on the blog, and they have worked well; my students are energized for the day’s work, more diligent in test preparations and more focused at the end of the period.
My first vocabulary activity is simple-Give a Word, Get a Handout. To briefly summarize, I ask students to use one or two vocabulary words in order to receive the day’s handout. I tried this on Monday at 7:45am when my students just refused to discuss vocabulary words with one another-even when I played music so they could not hear one another’s conversations. My students went from lassitude to (positive) attitude in about three minutes-smiling at me as they pleaded for paper so they would not feel animosity toward their missing work or so they did not have to abhor those who were working around them. I tried this again during a later class period, and it worked just as well. Students tried to outdo each other in an attempt to use words we had not used in quite a while.
My second vocabulary strategy, Vocabulary Playlists, is for studying; students need a stronger impetus to fully review for vocabulary quizzes lately. I have had one student who just could not seem to retain the meaning of vocabulary words, no matter how hard we tried to create mnemonic devices or connect to their interests. She mentioned the Vocab Playlist assignment where I had students link each word to a specific song. She said that she really liked that activity and learned her words well that way. So after two abortive attempts to make up a terrible score on a unit quiz, she finally passed the quiz with flying colors-because she had a study method that worked! I never would have guessed just how powerful music can be as a study aid! My students are doing this activity again have as a major review exercise to classify several words from previous units, and it seems to be helping.
Finally, my last vocabulary activity, Toss the Vocabulary, is to keep students focused at the end. I don’t know about you, but my students are wanting to pack up earlier and earlier before the bell rings. To keep them learning until the end, I have had to bring back Toss the Vocabulary review game more often. I find that this works better than simply calling out the words because it gives students an incentive to stay in their seats, actually pay attention to the words and definitions and makes vocabulary review a little more fun. All you need is a Beanie Baby and a list of words!
So as your students become a bit more restless, listless or just plain recalcitrant, hopefully you can encourage your students to learn and apply their vocabulary and have fun doing so!
Do you have any other great ways to keep them focused at the end of the year? If so, please share!
Common Core Standards:
Language Standard 4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown words
Language Standard 5. Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meaning.
Language Standard 6. Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge
Speaking & Listening Standard 1. Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations
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Posted on Fri, Apr 26, 2013
In honor of Shakespeare’s birthday this week, I thought it would be fun to have my students create Shakespeare-like insults, but with vocabulary!
I shared with my students a few of my favorite Shakespeare insults (see my downloadable handout for examples); you can also find many websites devoted to Shakespearean insult generation if you search for them online.
Students laughed at the specific and detailed insults that truly captured a humorous, if scathing, tone. Once students understood how Shakespeare formed many of his insults-either with the “adjective, adjective, noun” formation or with a more metaphorical turn of phrase, they had a sense of how to write their own
Next, I had them go through their vocabulary books and make a list of insulting vocabulary words from all of our units so far. This part of the activity you can do in groups, individually or as a class. Using these words, they started to string together truly lovely phrases including “Thou scurrilous, callow hugger-mugger,” and “Thou motley, squalid turnip!”
Finally, for students who wanted a challenge, I encouraged them to use any word-not just the ones that were originally negative-to come up with a great phrase. The results have been awesome, including ““thou art a bovine in visage!” and others.
What’s great is that this is a silly activity designed to get students to feel more comfortable with Shakespeare’s language, but I have adapted it to also demonstrate to students how they too can coin phrases to make erudite, if vitriolic, points. This activity really works with most age groups as students can quickly catch on to form and meaning, and use the words they have studied to create their insults.
I will note that I stressed with students that these were insults directed at no one in particular, and they were not to be used in any negative manner towards a peer (it also notes that on the downloadable).
In the end, my students had a great time crafting their phrases, and many students were quite proud of their end results-especially students who do not always find vocabulary rewarding.
I would love to hear some of your students’ best examples or how you might have modified this activity-made them positive phrases rather than insults, ask for a quick written dialogue to provide context for the situation, etc. Go forth and create (insults)!
Check out some of the insults my students created:
-Thou corpulent, bovine abomination!
-Thou art crass in thy speech, bovine in thy thoughts, vitriolic in thy stench, and corpulent in thy body.
-Thou cadaverous, vapid devil-monk.
-Thou art nominal in speech, corpulent in stature, and crass in nature. With your megalomaniac ways, thou speakest scathing drivel, thereby debasing you to the level of a bovine.
-For fun-Your mother is so excessively corpulent, she sits next to everyone in the theatre.
Common Core Standards:
Language Standard 3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts.
Language Standard 4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown words
Language Standard 5. Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meaning.
Language Standard 6. Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge
Reading Literature/Informational Text Standard 4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text
Reading Literature/Informational Text Standard10. Read and comprehend complex literary texts
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