Whatever vocabulary list / word bank you have – you can map it! Yes, just ask the students to draw a local map or a floor plan of a house or even a zoo layout.
Next, ask the students to put each vocab item in a particular place. Ask them to explain their choices.
ie. Colors. I put blue in my livingroom because it is where I like to think and feel blue!
Students can discuss their choices and why they put X in Y. It works like a charm and even fosters critical thinking skills. A wonderful technique for learning / acquiring vocabulary (because we know we acquire vocab. better if we connect it to an object / place).
This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.
Terry Elliott on 27 Aug 09Of course, good teaching is always going to be crucial, as is the mastering of formal academic prose. But it's also becoming clear that online media are pushing literacy into cool directions. The brevity of texting and status updating teaches young people to deploy haiku-like concision. At the same time, the proliferation of new forms of online pop-cultural exegesis-from sprawling TV-show recaps to 15,000-word videogame walkthroughs-has given them a chance to write enormously long and complex pieces of prose, often while working collaboratively with others.
