An Answer to Vocabulary Instruction Questions

Indeed, you read that article correctly. I wrote a “the” and not an “an.” After fifteen years of teaching ELA in junior high and earning a doctorate in English focusing on literature, specifically genocide literature, I think I have found “the” answer. I practice this every day, but it only occurred to me to write about vocab after seeing a few posts in teacher discussion groups on social media. “How do you do vocab?”

Academic Vocabulary Instructions

There are many books on vocabulary instruction. I was first introduced to Marzano in 2004, my first year teaching and the early years of No Child Left Behind. Our school district purchased a copy of Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement for every teacher in our school district. The emphasis at the time in education was, well, “building background knowledge,” which assumed to a degree that students did not have backgrounds. Still, the instructional approach being delivered to teachers and then to our students was “direct vocabulary instruction” as a way of ” building academic background knowledge.” The “academic” was the key here, and Marzano offered multiple appendices with terms for every subject.

Essentially, Marzano’s theory of vocabulary instruction rests on teaching what he calls “singular” terms as opposed to “general” terms. To understand the relationship between vocabulary and background knowledge, he explains that “individuals naturally tend to think of specific referents even for general terms” (34) and students tend to process the meaning of a singular term from their personal memory unless the context directs us. If we read “disaster,” what comes to mind stems from our personal memory (something we read, saw, or experienced) rather than a specific disaster (government shutdown, Hurricane Katrina, Chicago’s Polar Vortex). Instruction shifts all learners to a common referent, the one within the context of the unit or the context the teacher determines should be common.

Any observer in our building would know our school used Marzano’s work at the time because every classroom had a word wall, and many teachers were following Marzano’s “six steps to effective vocabulary instruction”: 1) teacher provides description, explanation, or example of the term; 20 students restate it in their own words; 3) students construct a picture/symbolic representation or act it out; 4) teacher extends and refines understanding with activities; 5) periodically discuss the terms; and 6) involve students in games to play and reinforce terms. If you look on Pinterest, you can see lots of graphics of this; almost one step for each day of the week. And you will see beautiful images representing referents drawn by students for their step 3.

Direct Vocab Instruction and Nuance

As a new teacher, I tried open and closed word sorts at the beginning of an instructional unit, pre-teaching all the words I thought they wouldn’t know. We started vocabulary notebooks, that we neglected to update. I made quizzes and games and a lot of assumptions in selecting these terms. I did my best to control the imagery and understanding of these words; I watched students edit their drawings after seeing another student who had a more “right” referent. Still, students struggled to grasp abstract terms and concepts of literature and writing this way.

Literary concepts and writing ethos resist words and images in a vocabulary notebook; the key to understanding is nuance. I found relying on direct instruction undermined direct experiences of the art and humanity in the acts of reading and writing. Relying too much on lists and protocols as apart from the text means that indirect and nuanced “instruction” were pushed to the margin in our efforts to target a weakness in our state data and systematically respond with a research-based, measurable intervention. The six steps, word walls, lists, and quizzes of terms gave the district (and teachers) something tangible to do to improve test scores. Now with Quizlet and Google Forms that grade your multiple choice quizzes, digital tools may further remove the nuance and context of the art in our subject matter.

Theme and characterization don’t make sense without characters, a story, and a reader. Syntax and diction resist comprehension without a writer and purpose. Sure, we can define the terms, but is that instruction? Meaning for the learner cannot happen until the reader experiences the story, interacts with the characters, crafts prose or verse. This is Rosenblatt’s theory of reader response that is essential to comprehension; Rosenblatt values deeply the reader’s schema or background knowledge. She does not view it as an empty vessel to be filled. Still, every teacher knows and understands when some part of our students schema conflicts or interferes with meaning. And here, the teacher or (better yet) peer-readers work through such nuance, interpretation, and significance in a discussion.

The Language-Conscious Classroom

Pre-teaching, pre-selecting vocabulary tends to minimize the background knowledge and life experiences within our students that could enrich their learning and the learning of their peers (and teachers) if we were to design our classrooms in such a way that we could regularly access their expertise and make visible the connections to content. Reading, talking and listening to others, exploratory writing and sharing — these are all ways we can nurture a language and experience-rich classroom.

During choice reading and writing, raising awareness about a word’s connotation is one way you can intersect language and lives; every day, we do a quick-write, one of the options is to “write into a word” to uncover the story or meaning in the student’s desired context. See my post “Almost 100 Quickwrites.” Students are not required to write about the word, but we discuss it and then the students who do write about the word share it later in the week or month in our open-mic, so the word comes up again and triggers recognition.

When discussing literary terms such as characterization, it is helpful to consider words authors use to describe characters directly. In our weekly blog post, students identify passages to support their claims and then unpack the words in the quote, discussing connotation. This weekly practice brings readers closer to the word choice, author’s craft, and, again, denotation and connotation. Image 1 shows a short but impactful assignment to study a word or phrase in the reading.

Image 1. Student interpretation of a quote from The Librarian of Auschwitz (Iturbe, 2012)

In a whole class reading experience such as poetry readings, The Outsiders, and A Christmas Carol (for our seventh grade classes), students encounter context-specific (time period) terms that may or may not trigger singular or general referents for readers. Students may rely on any memory they have close to that word. For misanthrope, they may see ant. For pansy, they may see pants. In many cases, a student can read past these words and get the gist or meaning of a passage, but these are places where an activity may be of use.

For The Outsiders, I asked students to make a sticky note for several context-specific words to note the connotation, identify if Ponyboy, the narrator, is uttering the word or if another character, and then lookup the words after concluding the chapter to reflect on how the denotation impacted their understanding. Of course, they do not do this in their daily choice reading (unless they wish), but this class practice for our shared reading is helpful in illuminating the simple fact that there are words that “are” the context. Any text in this anthology is great for a whole-class study of language use. See Image 2 for sticky notes.

Image 2. Sticky notes connotation study.

To extend whole-class word study to independent reading, let’s look at conferring during choice reading time. (See the section on conferring.) One student called me over for a conference to talk about a word: “adjutant.”

We read the passage together. Noted that an officer was talking and that another was entering the room. One was a superior. I recognized the “adju” from my work as an adjunct instructor, but the student was stumped; we only knew for sure that it was used with a negative, almost insulting tone, and that was enough to go on. Still, the student wanted to know, and so after reading time, he looked it up: “a military officer who acts as an administrative assistant to a senior officer.”

Will he ever see this word again? Perhaps. Will he use it in a story he writes someday? Likely. Should I have done a class mini-lesson on this word, made them draw a picture about it, add it to a class vocab list, test everyone on this one word? No. Do I now feel a bit worse about my title as an adjunct teacher? Yes.

As another example with poetry, let’s look at our poetry Friday lesson. I recommend you set up a routine to read a poem, story, or essay from this anthology as a routine. In my classes, on Fridays, we did poetry readings.

One week, two students presented “Maestro” by Pat Mora and guided their peers through a close reading. This was before Just YA came to be. Students noted unfamiliar and important words in the poem. While the Spanish words were unfamiliar to some, context clues and cognates —“guitarra” and guitar, violin and violin—supported comprehension. And students knew that, in context, “voz” was musical. Still, a quick dictionary search confirmed what students inferred. No need to teach these words prior to reading the poem; the context, the deep reading, the synthesis among readers illuminates meaning (along with access to an online dictionary for some). See Image 3.

Image 3. Student analyzing poetry on a Google doc.

In Closing

With 180 students reading a variety of books, poems, short stories, and essays, I cannot pre-teach vocabulary or create vocabulary lists that would meet the needs of all students. I cannot spend our 42 minutes of reading class going through the six steps of direct instruction. That is not “the” way.

So what is “the” way? Students. Let the context guide the process. Validate your students’ lives as able to make sense. Teach that authors/poets help readers understand the meaning of a word not in the word itself but in its use, interaction with other words and the characters/humans using them. Dig deeper into a word as inspired to do so. Vocabulary instruction should not be a separate item on the lesson plan; no more ”how do you do vocab?” Language is what we do; our singular and general; my referent and yours.