What's a Powerful Word?

Me: “What’s a powerful word?”

Student: “One that makes you see a picture.”  

Oh, joy! I think I’ve finally cleared the hurdle of students thinking a word has to be 5 syllables long to count as powerful! Thanks to reading a book that doesn’t have a lot of 5-syllable words, but does have a lot of powerful words (A Long Walk to Water), and thanks to the discipline of asking students every day what powerful words they found--and offering my own the first couple of days. I want them to develop the habit of reading like writers--noticing not just words they don't know, but also words they know that are really cool and descriptive, but they probably wouldn't yet think of to use in their own writing.

I ask why they picked a word, and sometimes a student will say he didn’t know what it meant (like monotonous and emerge), and sometimes she’ll say she liked the picture it made or the way it felt (like quench or cling). We look at the context and get a definition or just appreciate the power of the image. (I even found a creative way to make a word wall in a classroom where testing situations may require them to come down! See photo above.)

There are the unknown words that need a picture to build background knowledge so readers can envision images: sorghum, cassava, acacia, tamarind, antelope. (See last week’s blog). 

Then there’s ululate. I saw it coming. I knew from past experience that I didn’t want to try a demonstration myself because it comes out sounding like Tarzan. So I came prepared with a really good definition. The room full of 6th and 7th graders in an international school in Japan just stared at me blankly. Teacher fail. We moved on. 

As I walked out of class it hit me like a blinding flash of the obvious: This is where I needed an audio recording. No idea why it hadn't occurred to me earlier. I found this YouTube video with lots of different examples. The kids were so intrigued that they listened to it for 2 minutes BEFORE class started the next day. One student did a much better imitation than I’m capable of!

One other thing I’m not doing well: cold calling on students for their words. There are a couple that have become so excited to offer their finds, I have a hard time turning them down in order to cultivate the expectation that everyone will find powerful words. Next step for next week.