Engaging Vocabulary Strategies

My students spent the entire class today learning vocabulary words from the novel, Things Fall Apart, that they begin reading on Monday. The lesson went great for a Friday afternoon.

First, groups of four students created 4-square vocab quilt squares for their assigned 2 or 3 words. Here's the 4-square vocab format:

They then used their group's two or three assigned words to create a skit incorporating the words. Groups performed the skits for the class, and we used the applause meter to determine the winner.

To keep the vocabulary celebration going, students participated in "Give one, get one" where they circulated around the room with their vocab square, stopping when the music stopped to pair up and "give one" vocab word (explaining their word), and then they would"get one" vocab word before the music started and they moved around searching for new words to learn.

For homework over the weekend, I assigned creating a Thinking Map that further illustrates their word from 4-square. Students can create any Thinking Map that they want that illustrates or expands on their assigned vocab word. For example, they could make an analogy on a bridge map, define the word with a circle map, describe the word with adjectives in a bubble map, analyze the causes and effects of the word in a multi-flow map. Click on the double bubble map to the left to take the map to full screen to see a comparison of Kola (the vocab word) with coffee that the students and I created quickly as a model in class today.

A follow-up vocab strategy that my students can’t wait to do is to compete in an "I have, who has" vocab contest with the other English 10 classes for the fastest time. I even heard some students state that they were planning on studying words already this weekend.

To use the "I have, who has" strategy, a teacher simply needs to create a circular recitation of vocab words and definitions. One student says, "I have (insert vocab word). Who has (insert definition of another vocab word)?" The student who has the sheet with the vocab word that fits the previous definition responds, "I have----who has?" And so on.

Literacy Strategies Website

Kelly Wheaton, literacy coach at Valley View, found a great website the contains links to a number of literacy strategies. Many of the strategies collected there are the same strategies that people have learned from NUA.

Click on the Adolescent Literacy website to check out their descriptions of a number of strategies.

Vocabulary Trifold and Essay Adaptation

At the last NUA site visit, Cohort 5 members learned the vocabulary tri-fold strategy. Here are the strategy steps:

1. Teachers create a list of words from the text that are somewhat familiar to the students but that need some elaboration for full mastery.
2. Students select a vocabulary word from the list of words provided by the teacher.
3. Students take a piece of paper and fold it hot dog (i.e. landscape) style. Then they fold the paper in thirds to create a brochure/booklet.
4. On the front page of the booklet, the student writes the vocabulary word. (panel 1)
5. Opening the booklet, the student writes a sentence defining the word on the left-most panel. (panel 2) If students need to look up their words in the dictionary, they cannot simply copy the dictionary definition here. Students need to make their own personal meaning and their own sentence.
6. In the middle inside panel (panel 3), students draw a visual of the word and write a first person sentence using the word. This first person sentence makes the word culturally relevant to the student.
7. On the right-most panel (panel 4) students write down as many forms of the word as they can to demonstrate their knowledge of morphology.
8. On the two panels that would appear on the back of the brochure when opened up, students write synonyms on one panel (panel 5) and antonyms on the other panel (panel 6).
9. Once students have finished their vocabulary tri-folds, they move around the room until the music stops. Then they pick a partner, and the partners take turns teaching each other the word.
10. The teacher allows for several rounds of mixing it up during the music and teaching vocabulary words when the music stops.

Writing Adaptation

The English 10 teachers at that NUA site visit liked the kinesthetic appeal of the vocabulary tri-fold strategy and wanted to try it with essay instruction, so we adapted the panels to reflect the parts of an essay. As synthesis after instruction on each part of the essay, students wrote a few key ideas about that topic on the appropriate panel of their essay tri-fold.

Here's how we adapted the panels for a literary analysis essay on The Odyssey:

1. Essay topic and title
2. Introduction with attention-getter and The Odyssey by Homer (so they remembered to include that)
3. Thesis statement
4. Body Paragraph structure including transition, topic sentence, 2 PIEs (point, illustration, explanation), and recap sentence.
5. Conclusion with circling back to attention-getter and a reason for the reader to care about the topic.
6. Modern Language Association (MLA) essay formatting, works cited, and in-text citation information.

The students ended essay week with a visual that we called "essay in your pocket."

One student emailed his English 10 teacher, Rachel Tholen, and had this to say about the tri-fold, pocket essay.

"I really like the way you're approaching this paper. I found the little "5 Paragraph Essay" booklet helpful, and also just the sort of "I'll hold your hand" approach, because myself, along with many other of my classmates are... well basically clueless when it comes to essay formatting. Okay, not clueless, just not very well educated. So, to sum things up, thanks."

Synonym Triplet Quilts

I have selected two vocabulary words for each reading day of the unit on Brave New World. I will start each day by giving the students the two words and reading the sentence (or few surrounding sentences) where the word appears. I will ask students if they can figure out the word in context, questioning them on why they think that is the definition.

Then students can check their answers in the dictionary and/or thesaurus at their table, culminating their initial exploration of the vocabulary word my writing a synonym triplet in their notebook and drawing a corresponding symbol or picture next to the word.

Because of the illustrations, I am having students save two pages in their notebooks for the 22 words in the Brave New World Unit. That way all of the vocabulary words will be in one place to study for the test.

One day mid-unit, I will have students make a synonym triplet quilt for the room of the words learned so far. Partners will be assigned one or two words, and they can explore many student notebooks for their assigned words, selecting the best synonyms and symbol/illustration. Those partners will be responsible for creating quilt squares for their words.

Then at the end of the book, students will complete quilt squares for the rest of the words. This procedure will give them a few encounters with each word before the vocabulary test and also break up the study of their words.

Synonym Triplets

A favorite vocabulary strategy at the high school this past spring was synonym triplets. In brief, the strategy involves finding two synonyms for an assigned vocabulary word. Drawing a symbolic representation of the word further enhances the understanding of the word.

Most teachers simply modeled one synonym triplet for a vocabulary word and then assigned other vocabulary words to pairs or groups of students so that the synonym triplets would be student-generated. This also saves teacher preparation time.

Students only need a dictionary and a thesaurus to find their synonyms, but deciding on which synonyms will best help their classmates learn the word involves some great discussions. This is another reason to have students work in pairs or groups to create synonym triplets. And the symbolic representation is also a great discussion topic for groups.

In World Literature, I gave my seniors a list of the vocabulary words so that they had a place to record the synonym triplets generated in their class. Since I assigned vocabulary words at the beginning of each act of Othello, I wanted to vary the synonym triplet assignment each time. One time students drew a symbolic representation; one time they performed a dance or stood in a tableau that represented their vocabulary word, and one time they created a hand gesture. By the end of the play, I was feeling overwhelmed by the number of vocabulary words that I had given students, so I created just one list of vocabulary words for Acts 4 and 5 together. That day I assigned pairs their vocabulary word and told them to either create a synonym triplet or simply find the definition in the dictionary. Here's my recollection of the classroom discourse that followed my assignment:

Student 1: Are we supposed to draw a picture, create a hand gesture, or what for our word?

Teacher: You don't have to do anything fancy. Just find the definition.

Student 2: You're kidding us. Are we just doing vocabulary the old fashioned, boring way?

My students were not deterred by my simplified assignment. I saw many students discussing, "If we had to create a hand gesture or body movement, what would we do?" It was then that I realized the true power of this strategy. Students were engaged with learning new words, and I was trying to hurry them along.

Sarah Jarrett also had success with synonym triplets in her classroom. Sarah commented that her students were very enthusiastic during synonym triplet days, and some students even beat boxed during their vocabulary word presentations. Sarah observed that one student, who was very excited about this vocabulary strategy and the beat boxing, did so much better on the vocabulary test on the words from synonym triplet day than he done on previous vocabulary tests.

Beth Neary also noticed increased vocabulary retention with this strategy in her Advanced Placement Spanish Literature class. Beth reported that her advanced students could ace vocabulary tests just by memorizing lists of words and definitions; however, when she used the words later in the year, they couldn't recall the definition. In January Beth had students create a synonym triplet quilt (in Spanish) for the vocabulary words in that unit, and when Beth asked the students about the words in May, they could still recall the definitions.

The synonym triplet quilt idea was the brainchild of Jen Cordes, a special education teacher at the high school. She had her students create a quilt of words for Midsummer Night's Dream. Both Jen's special education English 10 class and Beth's AP Spanish class, created quilts of vocabulary words where students punched holes in their squares and tied the squares together with yarn.

Edina's NUA coaches used a similar quilt strategy in a teacher workshop this summer, but we didn't tie the squares together. Instead, Deb Stortz just made sure colors of paper squares were equally distributed and then hung in a quilt pattern. The finished quilt is shown below.

Instructional Flow Map

NUA has introduced the Instructional Flow Map this year as a tool for curriculum planning. I have seen the presentation on the instructional flow map three times: 1) at large group with Carlton, Alexis and Norman, 2) at EHS's site visit with Alexis, and 3) at Cornelia's site visit with Stefanie. Each presentation has brought me closer to a full understanding of the power of this curriculum planning tool.

The boxes of the instructional flow map follow this order:

1. Introduction
2. Concept Development
3. Vocabulary Development
4. Skill Development
5. Teach The Lesson (Guided Practice)
6. Mediate for Mastery
7. Teacher (self) Reflection
8. Release the Lesson (Independent Practice)
9. Review
10. Student Reflection
11. Concept Confirmation
12. Assessment

As I have begun to use the instructional flow map in planning my lessons and coaching other teachers with their lessons and units, I have had these initial reactions:

Teaching the lesson does not occur until a lot of priming has happened for the students. In the introduction stage students need to be informed explicitly at the beginning of the lesson what are the goals, standards, strategies, and assessment for this lesson. Lately, I have been more careful telling students the what, why and how of each lesson, and specifically, I write the "explicit strategy instruction" on the board when students will be learning a new strategy.

Another priming observation that I had with the instructional flow map is that teachers need to front-load vocabulary. When Scott, the math coach, and I were discussing ways to introduce the ray, segment, and line unit for geometry students, we kept the instructional flow map in front of us so that we realized that the time taken for vocabulary development before teaching the lesson would be time well spent. So Scott planned to have students create a tree map or use defining format for the terms.

Next week before my World Literature students read "The Infant Prodigy" by Thomas Mann, I will spend a lot of time on vocabulary development before reading since the short story includes a number of musical terms that will be unknown to many students. During the vocabulary development stage of the instruction, I will employ the "Possible Sentences" strategy in Denise Nessel's Thinking Strategies book.

Another part of the instructional flow map that I felt has been neglected in my lessons in the past is the student reflection component. Stefanie pointed out that students need to be included in the equation when deciding if they are ready for the assessment. The day after Stefanie's instructional flow map presentation at Cornelia, I implemented this student reflection step by using the red light/green light approach that Stefanie had discussed.

The red light/green light strategy is simple yet effective. I gave students three cards--yellow, red and green--to keep on their tables as they prepared for a group fishbowl discussion on an assigned sonnet. If the group did not feel that they were ready to discuss their sonnet, they had the red card displayed. If they felt that they were close to being ready, they put out their yellow card. And if they were 100% ready to have their sonnet discussion assessed, they put out their green card.

My seniors were sceptical at first because they didn't understand why they couldn't just tell me when they were ready to present. I informed them that the visual display of cards around the room would allow other groups to also keep an eye on the progress of others, and if they noticed that many groups were going "Green," they would have to pick up their pace. The other benefit of the red light/green light strategy was that on-task time seemed to increase. As I circulated around the room, if I heard a group with a red card displayed talking about something unrelated to the assignment, I could flip their card to yellow, saying, "You must be close to being finished." I only had to do that to a few groups to keep everyone focused.

The instructional flow map has immediately impacted my curriculum design in the ways mentioned above, and I am sure that it will have an even greater impact as I use the tool even more.