Teachers and tutors, do you want to save time and get double or triple use from the same source? Use your students’ vocabulary workbook to teach writing.
Many of my students use the Wordly Wise 3000 series (which I recommend). It has 20 lessons per booklet, one booklet per grade, first through twelfth. In each lesson is an annotated list of new vocabulary words plus exercises using the words.
Like other vocabulary building series, each lesson also has a reading selection in which each new vocabulary word is used. These reading selections are followed by many questions asking the student to use one of the new vocabulary words in a complete sentence answer.
But other ways to use the vocabulary and reading selections augment their original purpose and make them valuable as writing tools. Here are some I have used.
- Summarizing. I teach students to underline the most important or key words in each paragraph. Next, I show how to analyze each paragraph and to write an identification in the margin next to the paragraph. Those phrases might be “dodo bird’s appearance,” “raising $ for Statue of Liberty base,” or “Renaissance dates and definition.” Then, using the underlines and margin information, I teach the student to write a summary of each paragraph in about one or two sentences. When he is done, he has a good summary of the reading selection.
- Paraphrasing. Taking one sentence at a time, I ask students to rewrite the sentence, keeping the meaning but changing the sentence structure and, where possible, the vocabulary.
- Writing RACE responses. I write a question based on the article. Then I ask the student to respond using the RACE format (Repeat the question, Answer the question, Cite part of the article used as evidence, and Elaborate on that evidence with more evidence).
- Writing sentences using new vocabulary words. So many times students can define a word but they cannot use it properly in a sentence. I ask them to write sentences using vocabulary words. This shows their weakness in understanding certain words and helps me to explain the words better to them.
- Writing paragraphs using new vocabulary words. I ask students to write each new word in a coherent paragraph or two. Writing a paragraph takes more skill than writing independent sentences. Not only does the student need to know how to use the word, but he needs to know its noun, adjective and verb forms and whether it is the best word in a given situation. Forming a coherent whole takes imagination and hard work.
- Writing narratives. Put a person or animal into the nonfiction situation in the reading passage and write about it. What if you were a dodo bird encountering your first human being? What if you were a Cherokee forced to say good-bye to your land in North Carolina and trek toward the unknown? What if you were Leonardo’s apprentice, entrusted to carry the rolled up canvas of the Mona Lisa from Florence to France?
If you are teaching children to write, you know that coming up with a writing topic is tedious. But by using the reading selections from the vocabulary workbooks, the subject matter is identified, the student has prior knowledge, and the vocabulary words are identified.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
English Writing Teacher 