Vocabulary that Sticks! There is no "n" between the "i" and the "c."

Vocabulary and all of its incarnations are my passion. I remember as a boy how I would flip through a thesaurus and be enchanted by all the different synonyms for different words. Why say "dog" when I could use jewels like hound, pooch, canine, mutt, cur, and bitch?

When I first started teaching, I would give my class a canned list of SAT-style vocabulary words - words which came from chipper worksheets that I dutifully copied, and I expected the students to know how to define them at the end of the week, perhaps even use them in sensible ways. Of course, I used them in context as best I could, but at the end of the week, it was "pump and dump" on the quizzes, then the words would be abandoned. They didn't stick.

Today I have the Smartboard, a magical tool that has enabled me to take vocabulary study several levels higher. First, the students find "Words in the Wild." From reading newspapers and magazines, they bring me cool, advanced words that they have never used before. Most of the time, these words would fit on any SAT study list.

Next we define the words and understand the part of speech for each words.

Now I'll tell the students to create a complex or compound sentence that clearly uses the word in context. And the kicker...

I've modeled for students how to find an online image that portrays the word.




Today, I invited students to put their fingers on the Smartboard, and smiled as they attacked the creative, open-endedness of it all. As a class we made slides that featured the word, it's definition, a great sentence featuring the word in context, and an image that conjures the word. The sky is the limit!

I like this approach because I made it up after synthesize my best practices and what I've seen other teachers do. While it probably makes more work for me- no matching or fill in's at the end of the week - I hope the students get more our of it and learn to love and use vocabulary in creative ways.

I wonder what the character "V," the word lover extraordinaire, from the movie V for Vendetta would say? Visciously vital vocabualy victoriously vaunts over other versions!