(

1. (

2. Exploring Deeper Word Meaning I Didn’t Know it Meant that Presented by Laurie Jolicoeur

3. Objectives: • To explore the effectiveness of using Latin roots as a • means of developing deeper understanding of vocabulary • To reveal the essence of both familiar and unfamiliar • words • To demonstrate the utility of visual cues in the • classroom when teaching vocabulary

4. Floccinaucinihilipilification Hello Ms. Jolicoeur! This is Kevin Burke from your Etymology class a few years back. Right now, I'm sitting in my dorm room studying for psychology midterm in a few hours, and, while reading the textbook, I came across the word "floccinaucinihilipilification" used in a completely serious manner. I instantly thought of the day where we dissected it in class and because of that had no trouble understanding what was being said. With no Etymology Experience Day to share the story at, I had to email you and let you know! I hope everything is well at LT and would like to thank you for teaching in a manner that truly stuck! Sincerely,  Kevin Burke LTHS Class of 2011

5. Where the Teaching of Word Meaning • Typically Falls Short • Memorizing definitions • Telling students the roots, but not actively usingthem as • curricular content and/or in daily practice • Learning Latin prefixes and roots as meaning • “equation” e.g. magn + fy = make large • Avoiding words whose connection to the roots • is not self-evident

6. Students need skills that • take them beyond the short-term memory • are fitting to their brain development • build their confidence to discern meanings of new • words in the future.

7. It’s not flipping a switch According to many researchers, the following abilities are required for effective reading comprehension in the upper grades: • “the knowledge of words” • “the ability to access the knowledge efficiently” • “the ability to integrate new concepts into existing conceptual schemata” (Hennings, 2000.)

8. The Impact of Prefixes & Roots…for all of our students • Majority of English words come from Greco-Latin elements (Hennings, 2000) • In specific fields of study (science and humanities) almost 100% of G-L words occur (Hennings, 2000) What does this mean for students that are raised in homes where Greco-Latin derived words are used infrequently? -Some of students have to leap over a “lexical bar” to access our content -Incorporating word study in the content area, assists students in reaching this “lexical bar” (Hennings, 2000).

9. The Power of Words “By analyzing and sorting words, searching for related words, and discovering ways words work, upper level students learn clusters of words that share a common element or origin rather than individual words by memorizing definitions.” (Hennings, 2000.)

10. Strategy: Reveal the essence of a known word through its root. Surprise! regurgitate frustum torpid

11. Activity 1: • Directions: • Pretend you are teaching the word “remorse” in a Psychology or English class. • Go to and look up the prefix and root meaning. • Turn to your shoulder partner: • Discuss the connection between the dictionary meaning of the word remorse and its Latin origin meaning. • Deepen your understanding by looking up two more derivatives: morsel (e.g. Nestles’) and mordant (e.g. comment). How do these two words relate to their Latin origin? www.dictionary.com

12. According to Marilee Sprenger… Storytelling: • “is one of the all-time favorite brain activities” • Has “emotional components that attract the amygdale, the emotional center of the brain” • Stories have “beginnings, middles, and ends that make sense to the hippocampus, the structure that helps store these episodes.” “Brain-Friendly Teaching: Strategies to Improve Memory” http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev/profdev 156c.shtml

13. Strategy: Tell a personal anecdote, back-story or history of a word using its roots. Rivalry

14. Be a story collector impecunious “poor” sincere “genuine” sin from sine- “without” cere from cera- “wax” Tell about the merchandizing of ancient Greek statues to Rome • pecu from pecus “cow” • Explain how the use of money originated from the bartering system

15. The Correlation between Visual Representations & Memory “The use of visuals through color, clip art images, and graphic organizers helps students to remember by stimulating more areas of the brain” (Sprenger, 1999). • According to Sprenger, “power pictures” or student created visuals access the emotional memory pathway, which is vital to learning (1999).

16. Visual correlations for vocabulary from Tabulae to pupa • According to Jensen, colorful visuals open up “memory pathways when they try to move new learning into permanent memory” (1998). • According to Marzano, graphic organizers connect students to new learning (Marzano, 2004).

17. Strategy : Use visual cues to explore a word’s meaning. http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ sanguine

18. Activity 2: • Directions: • Choose a vocabulary word or term in your curriculum. • Go to • Select a visual representation of the word in order to assist a visual learner with understanding a likely context for the use of the word or the connotation of the word. • Form a group of three. Together: • Share & explain your visual representations. • Have your partners explain how this visual assists them with understanding the context for and/or connotation of the word. • Determine how doing this at home or in the classroom might enhance conversation and long-term understanding. www.visualthesaurus.com

19. Activity 3: Play with the root of a word. Spend the next 5 minutes taking the ROOT of a word in your curriculum and brainstorming or researching other words that use the same root. Push yourself to include both easy and more challenging words. e.g. port- “carry”, curr- “run”

20. How much of a word can you get assuming you don’t know its definition? Promote understanding over memorization. TAKE TIME IN CLASS TO CULTIVATE UNDERSTANDING BY LOOKING UP UNKNOWN ROOTS. WORK THE MUSCLE.

21. According to Marilee Sprenger… “Some content area specialists may be fearful of “wasting” instructional time allocated to their discipline on word study investigations. Just the opposite is likely; time spent in meaningful contextually relevant word study facilitates students’ understanding of the subject discipline.” *Latin Experience Day (Hennings, 2000)

22. According to Marilee Sprenger… Humor • “is attractive to the emotional system” • “ allows for some higher level thinking higher up in the brain” • “and laughter releases important brain chemicals that make us feel good and aid in retention.” * According to some studies, we remember 30 percent more of what we learn with humor. “Brain-Friendly Teaching: Strategies to Improve Memory” http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev/profdev 156c.shtml

23. Transferability Watch a strategy become an intervention over time. In order to make sense of a word, idea, or knowledge, students entering the workforce in the information age must not only be educated in vocabulary, math, reading and comprehension skills (Whetzel, 1992), but they must also be taught to use the higher order thinking including critical thinking (Huitt, 1997; Slavin, 1991)

24. Three Strategies for Exploring • Deeper Word Meaning: • To explore the efficacy of using Latin roots as • a means of developing deeper understanding • of advanced vocabulary • To reveal the essence of known words • To demonstrate the utility of visual cues in the • classroom

25. How will you incorporate today’s three strategies into your classroom this semester?

26. References Daneman, M. (1988). Word knowledge and reading skill. In M.Daneman, G.E. MacKinnon, & T.G. Waller (Eds), Reading Research: Advances in theory and practice, Vol.6 (pp.145-175). SanDiego, CA: Academic Press. Hennings, Dorothy (2000, November). Contextually relevant word study: Adolescent vocabulary development across the curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44 (3), 268-279. Jensen, E. (1998). Teaching with the brain in mind. Alexandria, VA: Associationfor Supervision and Curriculum Development. Jensen, E. (2000, November). Moving with the brain in mind.Educational Leadership, 58(3), 34-37. Marzano, R. (2004). Building background knowledge for academic achievement: Research on what works in schools. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Sprenger, M. (1999). Learning and memory: The brain in action. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.