Differentiation with Vocabulary

Differentiation with Vocabulary

            As a former Latin teacher, I love teaching vocabulary in my Humanities classroom.  Words are powerful, words are interesting, and words can be wildly entertaining. I want my students to maintain and utilize an academic vocabulary in order to help them in high school, college, and beyond. My goal is that my students remember the words well beyond next week’s quiz.

            I use Jane Bell Kiester’s The Chortling Bard as my grammar and vocabulary warm-up to start each class. Specifically, I use the warm-ups from her version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The vocabulary is rich and a good mix of words. Many of my students perform well on assessments, but I want all the students to perform well and also retain the information after the assessment.  I’ve been varying the processing activities and differentiating groups based on previous scores of vocabulary assessments and word choice in their writing. Here is a sampling of what I’ve been doing:

Activities for not yet proficient students	Activities for on-target students	Activities for TAG/highly capable Students
1. Making flash cards 2. Quizzing with a partner 3. Drawing/ graphic representation of words 4. Practice with assessments from previous years 5. Small group check-in with teacher	1. Writing pseudo-assessments: true or false, fill-in-the-blank, matching, synonym and antonyms (I sometimes use their questions on the assessments) 2. Exploring the parts of speech with vocabulary 3. Small group vocabulary charades	1. Writing linear arrays[1] 2. Writing analogies 3. Writing stories with vocabulary words 4. Compare/ contrast words 5. Word families 6. Etymologies

            For whole group instruction, I use vocabulary graphic organizers[2], class discussion with emphasis on root words and prefixes/suffixes and visual representations of vocabulary words.  Often I’ll type the vocabulary list into Google Images search and we’ll discuss why a particular image came up. Caveat: do not do this “live” in front of students. Even with the usual school safety settings in place, I’ve seen some unseemly images! Making your own vocabulary puzzles is another great idea- I use crossword puzzles because they are self-checking[3]. If you have a small class and/or enthusiastic class, you can do whole class charades with vocabulary. I’ve used “Mad Libs” as a practice activity for vocabulary, and students love it.

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[1] www.readinglady.com/.../Vocabulary%20Ideas%20compiled%20by... Or www.washingtonco.k12.nc.us/.../Graphic%20Organizers%20for%20...

[2] http://www.educationoasis.com/curriculum/GO/vocab_dev.htm or https://sites.google.com/site/readmhs/graphic-organizers/vocabulary-graphic-organizers

[3] puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/CrissCrossSetupForm.asp

"Old School" Differentiation

Educational Leadership devoted an issue to the theme "The Challenge of Individual Difference."-


In December of 1953!


http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_195312_washburne.pdf

Differentiation Resource

ASCD recently published online a differentiated instruction theme issue of the ASCD Express:


http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol4/425-toc.aspx

Different Assessment - Same Rubric

If you've looked at some of the teacher materials for differentiation, many of them provide assessment menus with interesting and creative ways for students to demonstrate what they know or can do.  However, when time comes to score these varied products, it can be a nightmare and a real deterrent to providing differentiated options for student assessments.  This is even more true for teachers in a standards-based or proficiency-based school in which all assessments have to tie to the specific learning targets.

The challenge I have set myself is to provide the students with at least two options for major summative assessments, both of which can be scored using the same learning targets and the same rubric.  In both the examples I will provide, the model I used for differentiating is not based on ability, skill, or readiness.  Rather, it was based on learning style preferences.

I taught an extended Bill of Rights unit, in which students learned the rights in each amendment and applied the concepts to a variety of court cases, and also watched a short (cheesy) movie called Future Fright (available online at http://www.viddler.com/explore/askgriff/videos/20/), which depicts an America without the Bill of Rights.  For their summative assessment, I needed a scored writing sample and needed to know what they understood about the practical application of the Bill of Rights in American life.  I offered two assessments.  One was a persuasive essay in which the students argued a Supreme Court case, either for the plaintiff or defense.  This assignment appealed to the students who were more linear/analytical thinkers.  The other option was to write a short imaginative piece of dystopian fiction about an America without the Bill of Rights, which required at least three specific rights to be violated.  This assignment appealed to the more global/creative thinkers and is one of very few opportunities for creative writing in my integrated Humanities class with its extreme time pressure to cover vast amounts of material.  Both assessments were scored for content knowledge and for the writing traits I chose to assess this time (Ideas/Content and Organization). 

I am designing my Civil War unit today, our semester work day.  In the past, the culminating project has been a collaborative group novel set around one specific aspect of the Civil War (4 - 6 students per group), based on the model of Paul Fleischman's Bull Run.  This year, I want to accommodate those students who 1) really, really hate group projects or 2) really, really hate creative writing.  So I will offer an alternative assessment, a multimedia digital movie project in which a student researches and presents learning about one specific aspect of the Civil War.  Both projects will be scored on content knowledge, research, and writing targets, using the same rubric.

Because my students have figured out that my classroom is a place where differentiated assessments are welcome, students are beginning to take me up on the option of "make a proposal and get my approval" more than ever before.  Because I am clear on the learning targets, I have a way to evaluate their proposals.  For the Bill of Rights assessment, two students opted to write a series of newspaper articles written as if the Bill of Rights had been repealed.  Two others opted to create a graphic novel portraying their dystopian fiction.  They were awesome!  And they were scored with the same rubric.

Maybe this is all a big no-brainer, but for me it has been a big aha!  If I start with the learning targets I will assess, it gives me the structure I need to provide differentiated assessments that are authentic measures of student skills.   This is very different from simple creating a menu of fun, interesting, creative products for students.  Maybe next time I teach these units, I will be able to expand the options.

If anyone is interested in seeing these assignment handouts, I'm happy to share.  Comment to this post or e-mail me at Ilana_Rembelinsky@beaverton.k12.or.us and let me know what you want me to send.

Quote of the Day

From Differentaiting Instruction in the Regular Classroom by Diane Heacox, Ed.D:

"The act of differentiating instruction captures the creative spirit."

Article of the Day

Differentiation and Special Education

Great introduction to differentiation in the classroom. 

Reading Strategies

I am starting a unit on the Bill of Rights in my Humanities classroom and so I must face my foe, the textbook. Being a life-long nerd, I personally love textbooks. In fact, I remember the geek-high I got in college when I found out that I owned the textbooks, and thus I could mark and highlight well into the night.

However, as a teacher, the relationship has changed. I still am enthralled by my personal textbooks, but the students hate theirs. When I teach History, my biggest challenge is to help students read and comprehend the material from the textbooks. I switched to a more engaging textbook, History Alive, which has helped a little. My students read pretty well- they love To Kill a Mockingbird, they are moved by To be a Slave, and they even make it through A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Why is this? Is it because textbooks are nonfiction? Is it because reading skills are assumed to be only for the realm of Language Arts teachers? Is it because most teachers are voracious readers and have always been and cannot connect to reading problems? Is it because textbooks are often the first place a young reader struggles? Is it because of poor textbooks in previous classes? I don't know. I do know that I teach classes of students who would rather pull out their toenails (or mine) than read the textbook. Even some of my TAG/highly capable students won't read the textbook, relying instead on memory and class notes to master the material.

Therefore, I went looking for help. I just finished reading Laura Robb's Teaching Reading in Social Studies, Science, and Math. I recommend this book to any teacher who is frustrated with a lack of reading comprehension in class. It is quick read, with chapters on strategies for before, during, and after reading. There are examples of how these strategies look in practice for different subjects and grade levels.  Moreover, there is a wonderful chapter on building vocabulary through reading.

Armed with knowledge and tools, I started mapping out some strategies before I started the unit on the Bill of Rights. These are to aid the comprehension of all of my students, but the struggling/reluctant readers in particular. Here's what I have planned:

Pre-reading Strategies:

• wordle (see wordle.com) of Bill of Rights, discuss
• pre-assessment
• students generate list of five important freedoms
• front-load some key terms (Bill of Rights, warrant, self-incrimination, due process)

During Reading Strategies:

• students use post-it notes to write questions or mark difficult parts of text
• focus questions
• text workbook

After Reading Strategies:

• Rewording/paraphrasing of amendments
• vocabulary graphic organizers

My goal is that all my students read the textbook more consistently and therefore comprehend the material more deeply.

Here are some other strategies recommended by Laura Robb: 

Pre-reading: brainstorm/categorize, K-W-H (What do I know? What do I want to know? How will I find out?)
During reading: pose questions, retell, identify confusing parts
After reading: connections to text/self/community/word issues, summarize