You may well have heard of our "Word of the Day" focus - known henceforth as WOD! Basically 8th graders encounter words in their every day dealings that alternately intrigue or perturb them...and then they investigate said word as their own individual "WOD." Students are responsible for finding a complete definition of the word, noting its part of speech and etymology (if it's interesting enough to note); they also need to record the source of their word, with a direct quote if possible, and then use the word in an original sentence...all recorded in a WOD journal. The expectation is that each student will ferret out a word for each day that we're in school...thus the term: word of the day!! At the beginning of Reading Workshop (and again with one of the core teachers later in the week), each student then brings her WOD to her table, where, after a group sharing of the day's finds, one word is selected by the members of each table group for an all-class consideration. In the past weeks we've discussed such words as apropos, masochistic, infidel, libel, sycophant, succinct, quintessential, ubiquitous and hipocrite (to name only a few!)... from sources as varied as our parents, the news coverage of the election, our teachers, popular songs, and independent reading ventures. In this manner, students are exposed to eight new words per session. We carry on lively discussions about the all-class terms, and from them I compile a monthly list of twenty words that our students master for a monthly quiz. Over the years, alums invariably return to tell me how efficacious our Word-of-the-Day endeavor has proven...not only does it help them with the array of standardized tests that loom on the horizon, but it also awakens them to the myriad benefits of an enriched vocabulary. (A few of them even have continued with the WOD practice - having become true word nerds!) As I tell our girls, words are power!
FYI: Our October Words are:
1. intrinsic
2. caprice
3. ubiquitous
4. masochistic
5. sanctimonious
6. inexorable
7. camaraderie
8. rancor
9. cantankerous
10. ideology
11. sycophant
12. propitious
13. taciturn
14. diatribe
15. tangible
16. harangue
17. cajole
18. dissident
19. nebulous
20. petty
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3 comments:
Sally - This was an interesting assignment. We had a little "rancor" at our house about whether or not some of the words were used correctly when they made it into sentences. I assume you go over them all as a group?
nice post. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did any one know that some chinese hacker had hacked twitter yesterday again.
interesting article. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did any one learn that some chinese hacker had hacked twitter yesterday again.
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