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Interviewing a Word

They Hate Photos


 Both my College Prep and Honors English classes will be interviewing a vocabulary word.  College Prep did this activity last week, and Honors will do it this week.  I selected words from The Outsiders.  When selecting words for students to learn, I look for words that are not only challenging, but for words that will prove to be useful in their lives.  For example, the word chocks would not be a word I would select.  By the way, chocks are wedges to stop a wheel from moving.  Students are unlikely to encounter this word in an academic class and would not get much mileage out of it in their own writing. 
Never Knew What to Call These!
 Therefore, some of the words I chose for this activity were:

 apprehensive
aloof
elite
savvy
unfathomable 
defiance
I LOVE this Picture!
Love Diegueno Students!

 Students were asked to interview their assigned word.
Getting to Know "Aloof"


What I like about this activity is that students learn related words, as well as synonyms and antonyms. Once they finished the written work, they created a visual of their word.

Love the Art!

Students were then attended a Vocabulary Party where they conducted interviews of each other's words.   I provided them with a chart, and they were told to write down the definitions and related words for each word they "met."  
This was my first time doing this activity with students, and they seemed to enjoy being creative, as well as learning new vocabulary!  At the end of class we debriefed the activity, and I so appreciated their suggestions for how to improve it.  

In Honors this week, students annotated/analyzed passages in The Outsiders.  They were encouraged to select quotes related to the essential questions for the novel.  I was impressed with how students copied the quotes using correct MLA format, provided the context for each of their quotes, and completed a detailed analysis of each quote.  We are really working on "reading between the lines."  We shared our quotes in groups, and this allowed for a great discussion of the novel.  

Just look at the faces in these pictures, and you will see why I think I have the best job in the world!
My Shy Students


Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 15, 2015 at 9:09 AM

    I really liked how you got to know all of the meanings of the words in a creative new way.
    -EthanBurnett

    ReplyDelete

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