Allison Kikkert

Professor Trombley
RDG 323
06 November 2020

This vocabulary task will encompass sixth-grade students completing an in-class

activity. The activity will first be modeled by the teacher with the help of student input.
Students will then complete the task within small groups and report back at the end of
class. This activity taps into students’ prior knowledge using word gradients as well as
providing students with an opportunity to construct their own knowledge of new
vocabulary words by utilizing Greek/Latin root words.

For my whole-activity, I will first start off by gathering student attention by asking the
question “Who here knows what sad means? Who knows what happy means?” Ideally,
students will become engaged by the sheer obvious nature of the question. My
questions will elicit student responses such as “Well, sad means feeling down or upset
and happy means joyful or excited.”

I will then say something to the effect of:

“Well those were rather simpler questions that didn’t require much thought right? What if
we were able to construct the meaning of much more complex words simply based on
their root words (which are small parts of a word that contribute to the overall meaning
of a words?) For example, let’s look at the word enraged. Does anyone here know what
the word enraged means?” *teacher write this word on the board*
Students will respond to this question most likely by having no idea, taking guesses that
are close, but maybe not spot on.

Under the word “enraged” then I would write the prefix “en-”, which mean “to make or
put in” and the word “rage” which is derived from the Latin word ​rabies​ meaning
“madness, rage, or fury”.
“Based on these two separate root word meanings what do we think the word enraged
means now? How is that different from the word frustrated?” As a fun connection I might
mention the Latin word “rabies” derived from the word rage. “How might an animal act if
they have rabies?” This seems like subject matter sixth-grade students may be
interested in. “Well, an animal that has rabies may be more aggressive, hostile, or
wanting to fight other animals, right? How might the definition of enraged be different
from the definition of frustrated? Let’s take a look.”
I will draw an arrow like this on the board:

Eliciting student response (guided practice):

“What feelings may be in between frustration and enraged? There is no perfectly right answer,
this is up for interpretation.”
I will guide student thinking based on their responses and direct them toward a more accurate
response. For example, if a student said the next step after being frustrated would be feeling
sad, I would redirect them by breaking down the response.

By the end of the classroom guided practice, the word gradient would look something like this:

Teacher:
“Now that we’ve done one example as a class, your task for the rest of class will be to
complete these ​Word Gradient Templates​ on your own with one or two partners. ​Be
sure to make a copy of this document (File -- Make a Copy) before editing​. To fill in
words in the text box, click on the word gradient you’re completing, then click ​Edit​. This
will allow you to fill in your words. You may use Google to help you, but try your best to
develop these words on your own! Towards the end of class, we will come back and
share our work and examples. I will be circling around the room to answer any
questions.”

Differentiation:

Students will be provided with a word bank to complete the Word Gradient Template
assignment. The objective is to appropriately place the given words in the word
gradients. Instead of coming up with words on their own, students will still be
distinguishing meaning between different words, but will with a little extra help.