Transcript PINE CREEK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Developing Vocabulary to Enrich Writing, Comprehension, and Interest
in the Classroom
Shelly Craig
Pine Creek Elementary School
West Ottawa Public Schools
2011 Lake Michigan Writing Project
Population at a glance…
Hispanic 53%
Caucasian 24%
Asian 16%
Black 7%
Native American 1%
Free and Reduced Lunch 76%
2009
Second language learners are not a
homogeneous group, but are as varied in
terms of their background, experiences,
and language expectations, values,
culture, and socio-economic status as any
other group of students. More important,
they can longer be thought of as a group
apart from the mainstream-in today’s
culturally and linguistically diverse
classrooms, they are the mainstream.
-Pauline Gibbons
How do I instill the passion in my students for learning new language,
new vocabulary?
“It’s kind of a fairyland of language for me here…It’s like a whole society
is conspiring to teach me Italian. They’ll even print their newspapers in
Italian while I’m here; they don’t mind! They have bookstores here that
only sell books written in Italian! I found such a bookstore yesterday
morning and felt I’d entered an enchanted palace. Everything was in
Italian-even Dr. Seuss. I wandered through, touching all the books,
hoping that anyone watching me might think I was a native speaker. Oh,
how I want Italian to open itself up to me!
-Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray Love
I haven’t felt so starved for comprehension since
then.
-Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love
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“Academic success is possible, according to
Corson, only if learners cross the lexical bar
(Corson 1995). So, if students are to become
successful in academic life, they need to get
meaning from text, which in turn, means
being able to build meaning using the more
sophisticated vocabulary of written language.
The sophisticated vocabulary of written
language =Tier Two Words.
-Isabell Beck: Creating Robust Vocabulary
Tier 1 Words
Tier 2 Words
Tier 3
Cat
Sky
Run
Sad
Orange
Grimace
Gaze
Fortunate
Slumped
Interest
Piano
Amino acid
Computer
Mesa
Journalist
One of the best ways to learn a new word is to associate it. Powell (1980)
found that instructional techniques employing the use of imagery produced
achievement gains in word knowledge that were 34 percentile points higher
than techniques that did not.
-Robert Marzano
Pick up the phone, bastard!
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1. Turn and talk to a neighbor about the
artifacts on each others’ papers. What are
they? What were they used for? Label
artifacts.
2. Use the prediction paper to record the
predictions you made with your neighbor.
Predict if your person was a passenger or
crew member on the Titanic.
3. How would you use this in your classroom?
“As far as possible, learners need to be engaged with
authentic and cognitively challenging learning tasks; it
is the nature of the support-support that is responsive
to the particular demands made on children learning
through the medium of a second language-that is
critical for success.
-Pauline Gibbons: Scaffolding Language/Scaffolding Learning

Boarding Day!
Today you will board the RMS Titanic! You will be an actual passenger or
crew member from the voyage. You will be reading a short biography on
who you are. Your job will be to tell people three facts about you.
Read your biography. Look for the information you and your neighbor
talked about. Interesting facts are fun too! Jot down your information on
your calling card. If you have extra time, you can reread or practice
pretending you are telling someone about yourself by using your notes.
Turn and take turns with your neighbor telling each other what you
found out about your Titanic character.
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Where are your icebergs?
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What schema do you need to develop?
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What could you do differently?
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How would this benefit the students? You?
Beck, I.(2008) Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions
&Extended Examples. Guillford Press
Gibbons, P. (2002) Scaffolding Language/Scaffolding Language:
Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom.
Heinemann
Gilbert, E. (2007) Eat Pray Love. Penguin Books
Marzano, R. (2001) Classroom Instruction That Works:
Research –Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. ASCD
Publications
McGregor, T. (2007) Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading.
Heinemann