Book Club Curriculum Project
Name(s): Tracy Aldrich (Wohlfert)
Book: “Cubanita”
Title of Activity: Introducing Vocabulary for Chapter 1 in Cubanita
Language Objective:
The learner will be able to explain in speaking and in writing the meanings of the words: virtual, uniform, khaki, reef, devilishly, cultivating, eternal, disposable, embrace and concentrate.
The learner will copy down vocabulary words and definitions.
The learner will converse with a partner to make predictions about which picture represents each vocabulary word.
Content Objective:
The learner will predict the meaning of words by using context clues.
The learner will practice using a dictionary by locating their vocabulary words.
The learner will practice their vocabulary words by using a technology game.
Please identify the pedagogical, linguistic, or literacy principles that ground your project. (These principles should come from course materials.) In one or two sentences, explain the principle and provide a reference from course materials.
Building prior knowledge – It is important to build and to made aware of previous knowledge a student has to help ELL make meaning from new texts (Smiley & Salsbury, 44; SIOP)
Using visuals – Providing visual aids are especially useful for organizing displaying content information (Faltis, 140)
Asking a question – You pose a question and have your students answer it, allowing sufficient time for the student to answer (Faltis, 141 – 143)
Please describe in detail how you envision the activity to be carried out. You can write this as a bulleted list or in a paragraph. The goal is to make the directions sufficiently clear that a reader could imagine and carry out the activity. If it’s not obvious, also explain how your artifact fits in.
I begin the lesson with a vocabulary preview. I will have 9 sentences on the board for the students to read. I tell them within each sentence there are one or two vocabulary words they will have to learn. I read the sentence to the class; I then ask them to predict what word is going to be the vocabulary word (I like to hear what words they don’t know very well). Once we have talked about the vocabulary word, I ask them what word or words in the sentence can help them figure out what the word might mean. Then we talk about how there are always context clues that can help us figure out. I think it is so important for them to understand that even if they don’t know exactly what the word means, the words in the sentence can help you take an educated guess. We discuss the context clues and then talk about what the word really does mean. I tell them what the definition means in the sentence.
Once we have gone through all of the sentences, I have the students look the ten vocabulary words up in the dictionary. This is good practice for them looking up words in the dictionary. As they are looking up the word in the dictionary, the student will probably ask me which definition they need to write, since there is more than one. I want them to come to this conclusion so we can talk about how words have more than one meaning. When they pick out the correct definition they need to be thinking about the context in which the word is used in the sentence. After they have looked all the words up in the dictionary, I will have different students read the definitions they wrote. This will allows us to talk as a class and talk about which definition was the correct one to choose for the sentence.
After we are done discussing definitions I will have the students get into groups of two. Then I am going to hand out a matching vocabulary worksheet. In their groups the students will have to decide which picture best represents the vocabulary word. They may want to look back at their vocabulary words to make sure the picture looks like the word they described. I will give them about 10-15 minutes to talk it over. Then I will bring them back together as a class and I will talk about what picture stands for what vocabulary word.
Once they have finished that, we will proceed to read chapter one, and stop at each vocabulary word when we come to it. I will ask different students what that word means when we get to it. Hopefully they will have learned them at this point. After we have read the chapter, I will take the students down to the computer lab and they will log onto quizlet.com. (A really cool website, where you can put vocabulary words in with definitions for the students to practice on the internet). I will have the vocabulary words and their definitions on this web site. They will play some of the matching games, and I will look at their scores to see how well they remembered their vocabulary words. This is great practice for a test I will have over the vocabulary words once we have finished the book.
Vocabulary Preview
- I mean, I love my mom and everything, but I have never even been to Cuba, so how can she expect me to embrace it?
- I can’t concentrate on my teachers’ handbook.
- I’d be stuck, taking classes locally, learning to cook and sew the holes in my brother’s underwear on the side, cultivating my domestic skills as a backup career.
- He smiles devilishly and spins around.
- Nice, if you live anywhere that actually experiences cool weather instead of eternal heat.
- And out he goes to scout, like a shark in the coral reef.
- My mother’s kitchen…a virtual alarm clock.
- After getting dressed in my work uniform of khakis and a bright green polo shirt, I grab my handbook and shove it into my bag.
- I wanted the quick snapshot with the disposable camera.
Match the picture with the vocabulary word
- Uniform
- Reef
- Khaki
- Disposable
- Embrace
- Concentrate
- Virtual
- Eternal
- Cultivating
- Devilishly