Vocabulary Development

Supporting Social Studies Vocabulary in the LA Classroom

Self select a nonfiction book

Social studies theme: Lewis and Clark Expedition

Students choose from a variety of themed books written at different instructional reading levels

Nonfiction and Doubled-Sided Journal Entries

Students select a nonfiction book.

Students complete double-sided journal entries.

Students collect vocabulary words.

Students write a nonfiction quatrain.

Double-sided Journal Entry

Each student reads then completes double-sided journal entries on a daily basis.

Students write quotes from the book, and for each quote they write a response.

Response choices are connections (world, text and personal), questions, and summaries.

Student working on a double-sided journal entry

Word Collections

As students read, they collect strong, colorful, sparkling and jazzy words.

They collect words that they like, don’t understand, think sound or look funny, create a sensory image or spark a memory.

Later these words are used to write a quatrain.

Personal Word Banks

Daily the students self-select one or two words they don’t understand from their word collection and place them in their word bank.

Here the students examine the words in context, predict their meanings then locate the words in the dictionary making sure the selected definition matches the context in which the word was used.

Personal Word BankBook Title_________________________________

Word/page# Sentence What you think the word means Dictionary definition

wilderness Jefferson was something wild land in its wild natural

p.11 spending too much for state

a piece of land.

frontier They set in front of something the area on the edge of

p.12 out from the settled region

frontier city …

More on Personal Word Banks

Once a week, we share the words we’ve collected.

We record them and discuss them. We use what we know about roots and

affixes to figure out meanings. Definitions are shared. We choose four or five words to use in

our classroom conversations the next week.

Quatrain

The students write a rhyming quatrain containing facts from the double-sided journal entries and words from the word collections.

Word Collections andPersonal Word Banks

Words from each student’s word collection are used in the body of the poem.

The students are encouraged to use words from their personal word bank in their quatrain.

Quatrain

Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France,

the Americans got such a great deal they smiled and danced.

Jefferson sent an expedition led by two brave men

who studied the Native Americans and then became friends.

Lewis and Clark trekked into unfamiliar territory,

described many plants and animals and got lots of glory.

The Teton Souix were not so friendly with the explorers,

Lewis and Clark were only following Jefferson’s orders.

Personal Response System

PRS technology allows the teacher to integrate a power point presentation in an interactive format.

Students are engaged as they view individual immediate feedback, relative to the class responses.

The Declaration of Independence

1. the freedom from control 2. the document that said the colonies

were free from British rule 3. a war against your own government 4. the money the people must pay to a

government

Personal Response System

The teacher creates a power point presentation. The students read each question and multiple choice answer. Each student selects a response. The class is provided immediate feedback for each question. This activity can be used as an introduction or review.