INTRODUCTION

The English language is rich with words, each offering a specific shade of meaning. The more of these words students know, the better and more precisely they can express themselves, and the more readily they can understand others' speech and writing. How can students help each other build their vocabularies? How can we instill in students a lifelong love of words?

PROJECT OVERVIEW

In this ongoing, low-intensity project, students learn new words with Get A Clue during otherwise unscheduled class time and collect unfamiliar words from their reading outside of class. All these words are added to a class database that includes the words and their definitions, derivations, synonyms, antonyms, and related forms. The database continues to grow throughout the quarter, semester, or year; students then work in groups to create multimedia presentations about the words in specific segments of the class database.

Phase 1: Learning words with Get A Clue

During appropriate times (study time, after class, in between other tasks), individuals or pairs complete lessons in Get A Clue, software which helps students build their vocabulary through inductive reasoning. After each session, students print the review sheets for the words they have investigated. Then they open the class' Wise Words Database and check to see if those words are in the database. They enter each new word, along with its part of speech, derivation, definition, antonyms, synonyms, and related forms. They also use the word in a sentence from which the word's meaning can be inferred.

Phase 2: Building the database

Throughout the quarter, semester, or year, students collect unfamiliar words from their school or personal reading. Using available library resources or the Internet (see Resources), students discover the definition and derivation of each word, find synonyms, antonyms, and related forms, and write a sentence using the word. Then, they open the Wise Words Database and add each new word and its information.

Phase 3: Creating presentations

When the Wise Words Database has grown to a sufficient size, divide the class into groups of three or four, and assign each group an equal portion of the words in the database. Then charge each group with the following task: Create an mPOWER presentation for the class that will permanently integrate at least 20 words from the group's word list into the vocabularies of each student in the class. The mPOWER slides can include images (retrieved from the Internet or created with AppleWorks drawing or painting tools), sounds (recorded in mPOWER), and desktop movies (created with a digital camcorder and iMovie); the presentations overall may employ humor, drama, music, audience interactivity, creative writing, and multimedia, and should include narration by the group.

When the presentations are complete, invite groups to take turns delivering them to the class.