{"id":1643,"date":"2012-01-30T06:42:08","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T14:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/?p=1643"},"modified":"2012-09-23T14:08:08","modified_gmt":"2012-09-23T21:08:08","slug":"choice-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/choice-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Choice Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things happen when you return from a conference. \u00a0New ideas attach with\u00a0\"\"<\/a>old ones and a host of “how does this all connect” is sifted through a lens of “what if…”. At FETC, keynote speaker\u00a0Michael Wesch<\/a>\u00a0(watch\u00a0TED talk<\/a>) talked about the fast rise of the new technologies (Youtube 2005; Twitter 2006) resulting in a new culture of belonging\/communication, with strong implications for education. With information being so readily available, he offered that education needed to put the “wonder” into the question. And keynote –\u00a0Heidi Hayes Jacobs<\/a>\u00a0(watch\u00a0TED talk<\/a>) asked why wouldn’t we combine tools to bring about a deeper infusion of experiences.\u00a0 So my question is how does this connect with the classroom?<\/p>\n

I’ve been working with a group of teachers on\u00a0writing process<\/strong>,\u00a0writers workshop<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0literature circles<\/strong>\u00a0and one of the questions we had was how to effectively increase vocabulary in ways that illuminate and explore the power of words to clearly communicate.\u00a0 This is especially important for students who find writing and reading challenging (knowing their vocabulary is incredibly smaller than their peers). Forget the spelling list.\u00a0 Though I’ve used all of the following separately, I’d never thought to combine the tools to gain a deeper connection.<\/p>\n

HOW I WOULD USE IT:<\/h3>\n

Students copy\/paste their written text into Wordle or other\u00a0word cloud generator<\/a>. The most used vocabulary words will appear larger than the others. Access an online\u00a0visual thesaurus<\/strong>\u00a0like\u00a0Visuwords<\/a>,\u00a0Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus<\/a>, Lexipedia<\/a>\u00a0(primary – with audio). \u00a0Insert the word and watch what happens. \u00a0\"\"<\/a>Each provide not only a root, definitions, examples but strategic relationships to other words. \u00a0Choose the appropriate word and replace the ‘worn out word’ in their text. \u00a0[Use a different colour so it stands out from the other text.] \u00a0Reread the entire written text several times to hear the relationship of ideas come together. This also helps with integrating the new words into general vocabulary.\u00a0[As with any tool of this sort, choosing the correct words in context takes thinking practice – some of the words that pop up in online thesauruses may not be appropriate for all age levels.]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Add these new words to an\u00a0anchor chart<\/strong>\u00a0in the classroom so everyone has \u00a0a ‘visual anchor<\/em>‘ when writing. \u00a0Paint chip strips are great for generating word lists. \u00a0Record the\u00a0‘worn out word’<\/em>\u00a0in the top colour box, then add ‘juicy’ words that are connected. When reading, keep a post-it note handy for recording words that ‘pop off the page’ \u00a0and use these as starting visual anchors. Connect these words with others found in Visuwords. \u00a0Warning – this activity becomes a bit contagious.<\/p>\n

How do you strengthen and extend vocabulary in your writing? \u00a0I’d be very interested in having you share your ideas here in the comment box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things happen when you return from a conference. \u00a0New ideas attach with\u00a0old ones and a host of “how does this all connect” is sifted through a lens of “what if…”. At FETC, keynote speaker\u00a0Michael Wesch\u00a0(watch\u00a0TED talk) talked about the fast rise of the new technologies (Youtube 2005; Twitter 2006) resulting in a new culture of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,5,6,14],"tags":[25,28,32,33,34,9,44,56,64],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1819,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/1819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sd41.bc.ca\/fastforword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}