Understanding Vocabulary, For Real This Time....

Think real hard: When is the last time that you learned a "new" word and why did you learn it? Chances are that you were interested in the new word or perhaps, you had a use for it. Language acquistion occurs for us as young children in a much more organic and natural way. As Dr. Feathers states in her chapter, " memorizing a definition is not the same as understanding a concept" and often times, in our schools for a variety of reasons our students are forced into "breadth" rather than "depth" as it relates to learning. How do we let our students naturally explore a topic like the Math teacher described in this chapter, yet still find time to make sure that we are hitting our pacing charts and preparing for standardized tests? There is substantial data demonstrating students begin to have a loss for a love of learning between the fifth (5th) and eighth (8th) grades. I believe much of this decline in student learning is the gradual loss of curiousity that is fostered between these years in the lives of youth. As a father of 13-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old daughter, as an example, I can certainly see differences in how they interact with the world. While my 13-year-old, a seventh grade student, certainly does a great job asking "interesting questions" per her Reading Teacher, my conversations with my 7-year-old are a bit more curious and spiraling in nature. No question is unasked and I often find myself taken away by how stiff and uncurious I become the more older I get. Learning must not be done in isolation and for a large part of this chapter, language and vocabulary acquistion follow a similar pattern. I particularly like the strategies of "context clues" and thinking about whether we should teach vocabulary "formally." My former students performed well with context clues and I think this particulary paid dividends when it came to preparing students for the American College Test (ACT). Whenever students would come to a passage they did not understand, they would usually encourage each other, or use the voice inside their heads, to tell them to "use context clues" to aid in comprehension. I think to this day, if I were to ask them what context clues, was they would do a great job of explaining the strategy. I also strongly believe, as you heard during Mid-Term Demo's, that I am a big fan of culturally responsive teaching and code-switching when it comes to learning new vocabulary. Many of our students will use slang or African American Vernacular to speak, talk and to understand the world around them. Its not right to say one way is right or wrong but how might we aid and increase students vocabulary by tapping into our students use of language so that they might adopt new words and apply them in situations that are appropiate. What are some of your thoughts as it relates to this chapter? What challenges do you think that you will face when you are working to build students vocabularly as it relates to your content area and grade level? How do you plan to create a classroom that is rich in language and ensures students are prepared to both comprehend and understand new words? How can you provide "depth" and not "breadth" as it pertains to student learning? I will be interested in hearing and learning from you all as this topic will be timely with our guest lecturer this week.

Bringing Text to Life: Using Sensory and Emotional Images to Enhance Comprehension

The old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words" is certainly one that we are all familiar with. Regardless, of whether you are young or old, from Detroit or Osaka, images play a powerful part in all aspects of our daily lives. Its no wonder that using images in the classroom has tremendous learning opportunities regardless of grade or content level. In her book, entitled, Mosaic of Thought, Keen and Zimmerman present the case for increasing the use of images in the classroom to advance comprehension, build community and to increase engagement in the classroom. This idea of creating images has tremendous value in even traditional science and math classrooms, while abstract topics can have pictures or images to aid in comprehension. Images are particularly important in the social studies, world history or civics classroom, where images such as September 11 (who can forget the images of planes crashing into the Twin Towers), war-torn, Third-World countries and war-stricken areas such as the Congo and Iraq can not only add in comprehension but also engage youth in social justice. While I appreciate Keene's belief that "text comes alive through the creation of sensory images" its critically important to note that the teacher should facilitate the conversations that take place afterwards. I appreciate her paraphrasing exactly what a teacher should say but I also believe that it is essential that there a prepared set of framing questions help to guide the conversation. I also found it helpful to have a set of standard questions to facilitate conversations or even more importantly a set of positive responses for when students shared their thoughts. "Great, thinking," or "I really like the way that you.... (include specific example)" and craft a set of framing questions just in case the conversation gets stagnate. I would like to hear others speak to the other concepts and experiences presented in this particular chapter, especially related to the composing sessions, the characteristics of such sessions, some of the challenges and opportunities that rest in implementing these strategies, how these ideas build on the ideas of previous chapters, how you might implement these particular strategies in your content area? I also really appreciated the section entitled, "Beyond Reporting on the Book" as this is SO important for our work with youth that students have the opportunity to see there final products as having real value in the world. How might students create authentic pieces of work that might bring value to communities? Please really try to stretch your mind and practice and think about how you might engage students with businesses, non-profit organizations and public and private institutions so there work has value.