For my Honors English II class, my students are working on vocabulary. The vocabulary words are taken from their current class novel, Like Water for Chocolate; however, they also all are able to be found on the SAT's top vocabulary list. Today, I had the students work interactively with their vocabulary creating a visual representation of a specific vocabulary group. The students have been learning about the importance of context clues, specifically restatement and definition clues, when defining vocabulary; as well as how to use these context clues in their own sentences. For this project, they had to combine the two elements of vocabulary and context clues. Here are the requirements of the project, as well as my example:
One of the major things I have struggled with in this unit is helping my students to understand how to apply their understanding of restatement and definition context clues. When I first had them create sentences for homework, I was alarmed by the number of students who were way off base with what I was asking. I felt like failure; clearly, I hadn't explained it well enough. I used their sentences as a formative assessment, and I adjusted my plan for the activity today. I reexplained the concept of restatement and definition context clues trying to give them a almost step-by-step way to create the clues. Here's what I wrote on the board:
Restatement: expressing the same idea using different language
- Use the synonyms column of the list
* Example: The church was attended regularly by the pious congregation because they are devout followers of their faith.
Definition: use unfamiliar word and then explain what it means
- Signal words + definition of word
* Example: The woman attended church regularly, and the pastor called her pious, in other words devoutly religious.
: signal word : definition
As I went around to the different groups, I was able to see that a few of my students were still struggling with the concept. I sat down with them and had them show me what they thought were examples of restatement and definition context clues. As I worked individually, I saw that the real problem was my students didn't understand how part of speech played a role into the creation of these sentences. A lot of them didn't understand that for a restatement clue if you use the word as a noun, you must then use the synonym for the restatement as a noun also.
When I talked to Tara, I explained the students' confusion with parts of speech. She informed me that the Common Core does not have a real place for grammar; therefore, the students have little interaction with the parts of speech. This left me feeling frustrated, maybe it's a personal bias from my linguistics background, but I feel like these kids are missing out on an important element of writing. I'm not talking about teaching them traditional grammar, but there are proven case studies that show teaching generative grammar can enhance student writing. I am curious to see how the student's lack of understanding of grammar will play into their understanding of future elements of writing and vocabulary.
Overall, the lesson went really well. By having the students work in pairs, I was able to get around to each group and address any problems or concerns they were having. Another thing I was excited about was the students' engagement in the activity. They were definitely all active participants. I was a little skeptical about captivating their attention because I didn't want them to feel as though the activity was beneath them. Fortunately, they all seemed to enjoy the activity, and I was able to see a lot of their creative thinking!
