We have talked some in class about reducing the amount of traditional grammar and style lessons taught in classrooms. Somehow vocabulary lessons entered the conversation as well, and I recalled sitting through vocabulary lessons in high school that did not seem all that effective, so it has been in the back of my mind. This past month, I observed a few high school English classes and thought I might share a method that the teachers used. I make no claims that this is the best method, but it seemed like a decent, simple idea that could be expanded to other things.
If your class has internet access, simply assign a few words as bell work every day that they can access when checking their class page. The students need to look up those words online, write down the definitions, and then use those words in sentences. They submit their writing with whatever classroom software you are using. Once class begins, you may choose to have the students share their work and discuss the words at the start of class. The writing counts as a daily writing credit for the semester. Since no paper is used, you don’t need to worry about wasting any, and if nearby students work together on understanding the words it isn’t cheating as long as they don’t copy one another’s sentences.
This is a very straightforward method, but I noticed how differently it worked in the various tracks. Honors students mostly finished their words without trouble, which helped them warm up for class. On the other hand, lower-track students seemed to benefit from reviewing the words as a class. They had discussions about how one might use vocabulary words in their daily lives, and as we know, learning practical applications for writing makes it matter more. We sometimes forget that students may be encountering vocabulary words for the first time and may in fact need to discuss them in order to understand why they matter, so this can in fact be a meaningful assignment. An enriched vocabulary is useful beyond classroom walls.