Today we explored the difference in learning a group of words just long enough to take a test over them, and truly acquiring the expanded vocabulary. Mrs. Scales’ explained the five principals of real vocabulary acquisition:

1. Clear Definition or the denotation of the word
2. Context – Understanding how to use the word in an appropriate context, this may include the connotation of the word
3. Connection – making personal connections with the word, using what you know to help you learn an unknown word
4. Morphology – the structure of the word, look at the word parts (roots, suffixes, prefixes). This may also include the etymology or history of the word.
5. Schema Theory – The way the human brain remembers things. Storing the words for future use. The human brain does not have a junk draw, but rather files things in chunks based on structure or similarities. This is why our weekly vocabulary lists are words that can in some way be chunked together.

This week’s vocabulary words all use the root SCI – we looked at the list on the weekly vocabulary page and talked about using the tools Vocabulary.com and or Quizlet.com to study for the tests. Both are good tools but students should work with both and decide which helps them the most. The primary point of the lesson was to understand that simply studying to remember one exact word for word definition to match each word is not enough to learn and continue to use the vocabulary words.

Plot, Setting, and Character

After a short rap that had most students moving to the beat in their seats, we talked about the three first literary elements that they will be tested over on the first literary circle test. We reviewed what we had done a couple of weeks ago concerning the types and level of questions that will be asked on the first test. All of the questions on the first test will be literal or basic knowledge questions. The answer to every test question can be found directly (or literally) in the text.  Finally, we reviewed the study guides handed out on Friday so that any student who didn’t remember details from the reading could work with their group and go back into the text to find the answers. It was explained that for tomorrow’s test, every question came directly from the information on the study guide.

Students were reminded again to read the blog everyday.