St John s High School - 1312 Words

Sarah Laskowski Due: 11/14/2015 St John’s High School English 2 CP, English 3 Honors Chosen Standard: SCCCR RL.LCS.10 Apply a range of strategies to determine and deepen the meaning of known, unknown, and multiple-meaning words, phrases, and jargon; acquire and use general academic and domain-specific vocabulary. For many of the students in my class, vocabulary instruction is of chief importance to their reading comprehension and their understanding of larger concepts discussed in class. The standard I am choosing to discuss is one I implement weekly, if not daily, in my lessons because without the skills and strategies to learn new words and understand the various meanings of words and phrases, students will struggle to succeed†¦show more content†¦If they still don’t understand the word, they can ask me and I’ll prompt them or help them accordingly. This strategy also helps students to take charge of their own learning, and to learn what ways work best for them. Many of my students feel the need for constant validation and are always asking â€Å"is this what I should write?† before answering a question. This best practice allows students to build efficacy in their ability to impact their own learning. Students also tend to take more pride in their knowled ge of these new vocabulary words when they’ve uncovered the meaning themselves. We often do â€Å"visual vocabulary,† where students teach a new word to the class using pictures, gestures, or other visual representations. In this way, their learning is social and students are able to learn from each other. For example, for our current unit on 1984 by George Orwell, students are creating visual representations of the major thematic vocabulary words (like surveillance and totalitarianism) and then adding the vocabulary words from the chapters that fit with those words. The students can choose what words go where, and what visuals make the