My Messy Vocabulary System

By: Summer Garris

In the film Most Likely to Succeed, teachers utilize Socratic seminar for deeper learning and comprehension of text. In today's blog post, read about how NGID teacher, Summer Garris, also uses Socratic seminar in her English classroom. Summer shares her vocabulary approach, which she says is "messy," and we appreciate messy because we know authentic learning experiences such as the one Summer describes are the way students experience deeper learning.

I spent years trying to acclimate to a vocabulary system for my students. I tried vocabulary packets with worksheets for students to learn sets of random words by matching them to definitions, working out clues to cross word puzzles, and completing sentences. I tried a variety of graphic organizers, charts, webs and matrices; students connected words to prior knowledge, finding synonyms, antonyms, examples and non-examples. I tried individual word journals; students made independent lists of words replete with contextual information and paraphrased definitions. All of the systems failed me.

My students inevitably became bogged down with packet completion deadlines, bored through “check your work” sessions, and covered in too many copies to organize. I struggled with student accountability and engagement. I found myself spending precious class time, and too much home time, sifting through stacks of papers and worksheets. Students were frustrated, and I was frustrated. What is an antonym of the word “vortices” anyway? None of the systems felt like an embedded part of my literacy instruction. All the systems felt inefficient, and all the systems lacked what I really wanted for my students – not just mastery of a list of random words on a weekly quiz, but ownership of words they could use in their writing and speaking experiences.

It occurred to me one day at home as I cleaned up the remnants of a fun Saturday afternoon with my young children: often good times are pretty messy. In fact, it’s hard to have fun and not make a mess. From this epiphany, I began to hone what I call my messy, but effective embedded vocabulary instruction.

Satisfying Student and Teacher Needs

First, I had to really decide what a good vocabulary system would look like. My vocabulary system had to:

• Give students authentic experiences with the words. Learning the words needed to make sense. The words couldn’t be from a random list. The words had to be necessary from the student perspective.
• Allow students to attach their schema to the new words. Students need opportunities to relate to the words and connect them to concepts they already know. 
• Give students opportunities to speak about and with the words. They need to pronounce the words and recognize them when spoken. 
• Engage students in the learning process and hold them accountable for learning. This means it has to be fun. That’s a tall order when thinking about learning vocabulary words with teenagers. 
• Ensure mastery and ownership of the words. A system must provide assessment data (both formative and summative) to ensure students have learned. It isn’t enough to match words to definitions on a Friday quiz. Students need to use these words on their own and recognize these words when they encountered them in pieces both in and out of class.
• Enhance the other course work, so that any class time spent learning the words is not at the expense of some other important aspect of the course. The vocabulary has to be part of an overall literacy experience, enhanced by and enhancing other literary experiences happening in my classroom. 

Making it Work: The Logistics

Each week, students are assigned a rather dense, rigorous reading piece. Usually, these are 6-7 page essays or excerpts from books. I use and English and Composition textbook and various essays and texts, but any reading assignment will work, as long as it is rigorous and contains elevated vocabulary. Students have the following assignments:

1. Close read the essay and annotate. They are given a set of discussion questions that often include questions on rhetoric and style. As students are collecting notes, they are collecting talking points related to the discussion questions, creating their own questions, and collecting new vocabulary words from the essay. 
2. Prepare for Socratic Seminar. Usually on Thursday, the class will hold a Socratic Seminar about the particular reading selection. To participate in seminar, students must show their annotations and list of words they encountered and defined during their reading. During the text based discussion, students are required to speak and reference text as they engage in conversations about the text. 
3. Write an annotated bibliography entry that rhetorically analyzes the text. They create MLA citations and answer questions about author’s purpose, claim, focus, intended audience, literary devices, diction, and syntax using textual evidence to support their contentions. 

Check back tomorrow for “What It Looks Like” and “What I Love About This System”


Summer is a High School English teacher in LaRue county and is a NGID Participant. Currently, The Fund is featuring blogs from teachers in the Next Generation Instructional Design network. They will share their journey, their ideas, and their collaborative work related to being in the network and with building units of study with LDC modules embedded.