Building Academic Language and Vocabulary
Academic language is an abstract, specialized, and conceptually dense language of school and school texts.
Academic vocabulary refers to those words, such as analyze, assess, create, describe, effect, explain, interpret, indicate, synthesize… or any other word you might use from Bloom’s Taxonomy.
These words provide a foundation for learning new concepts and processes in high school social studies classrooms. When students lack this foundation, they are very likely to struggle with reading and writing about new topics.
How does CHS use academic vocabulary? In your competencies, of course.
Do your students know what each term asks them to do?
Content
1. Students will be able to explain the impact of the progressive era on life in the United States.
2. Students will be able to analyze the United States policy of expansionism at the turn of the century.
3. Students will be able to analyze the domestic and international consequences of United States involvement in World War I.
4. Students will be able to analyze the role the nineteen-twenties played in the modernization of the United States.
5. Students will be able to assess the role the United States government played in confronting the domestic and international challenges of the nineteen-thirties.
6. Students will be able to assess the role the United States played in the outcome of World War II.
7. Students will be able to analyze the impact World War II had on the home front.
8. Students will be able to explain the impact of the Cold War on United States foreign and domestic policy.
9. Students will be able to describe how the post-war years were both a time of conformity and conflict.
10. Students will be able to explain the strategies used by various social groups to bring about change in the United States.
Skills
Students will be able to interpret primary and secondary sources to draw inferences and conclusions regarding a given historic topic.
Students will be able to follow an inquiry based process, organize, display knowledge and understanding in an ethical manner so others can view, use, and assess.
Students will use historical facts to create thesis statements and write analytical essays.
Evaluative Task Words / DefinitionsAnalyze / Systematically and critically examine each of the facts.
Assess / Determine the importance of an idea.
Compare / Show how the facts or ideas are similar.
Contrast / Show how the facts or ideas are different.
Define / Set forth the meaning or make something clear.
Discuss / Present a detailed argument or consideration.
Evaluate / Determine the value, significance, or worth of.
Identify / Establish the essential characteristics of.
Illustrate / Make clear by citing examples.
Interpret / Present the subject at hand in understandable terms.
Infer / Draw a conclusion based on given facts; predict, generalize.
Justify / Show or prove to be right or reasonable.
Summarize / Explain the main points.
Synthesize / Combine the parts into a coherent whole.
Morphology – Vocabulary Strategy
Teaching Morphology
Principle 1: Morphology should be taught in the context of rich vocabulary instruction.
Example: First teaching the meaning of strategy, teachers set up students for success in analyzing and using words such as strategic, strategize, or strategically.
· How to teach specific words:
o Teach a limited number of high-utility words directly,
o Present words in a variety of meaningful oral and print contexts,
o Provide repeated opportunities for deep processing of word meanings and scaffolded practice in using words.
Principle 2: Using morphology should be taught as a cognitive strategy (a strategic tool for reasoning in stages of thinking). Teachers need to model several times with meaningful examples and provide students with time and guidance to practice them.
· To break a word down into morphemes, students need to do the following:
o Recognize that they do not know the word or do not have deep understanding of the meaning of the word,
o Analyze the word for morphemes that they recognize (i.e., roots, prefixes, suffixes),
o Hypothesize a meaning for the word based on the word parts,
o Check the hypothesis against the context.
Word Sets Used in Sample Instructional Dialogue
ExploreImagine / Exploration
Imagination
Invent
Abolish / Invention
Abolition
Here we introduce the suffix –tion and its function while reviewing the concept of a suffix.
What do the words have in common?
· The ones on the left are things you do.
· The ones on the right have –tion and are things.
Teaching Moment: when you add “-tion” you change the word from an action into an object or ideas.
Principle 3: Instruction should introduce important word parts systematically and with opportunities for re-teaching and practice.
Focus on suffixes:
-er is common, flexible, and used frequently: teacher, picketer, explorer – this is a way to introduce the concept of a suffix and how suffixes function.
-cide is less common, inflexible, and more challenging: suicide, herbicide, genocide – Latin roots of words make this more difficult to extract meaning: sui – is Latin for “of oneself”; geno (genus) – is Latin for “race, kind, family, descent, origin”
For efficiency, opt for suffixes that are more common, flexible, and used with relatively high frequency.
Examples
Suffix / Meaning / Examples_s, _es / Plural or verb tense / Patriots, passes
_ed / Past verb tense, past participle / Helped, had helped
_ing / Verb tense or now form indicating on-going action / Was promoting, striking
_ly / How, when, where, or under what conditions / slowly
_er, _or / One who / Writer, legislator
_er / Comparative adjective / Bigger, smaller, greater
_tion, _ion / The process of act of / election, aggression
_sion, _ition / Tension, partition
_ation / Documentation, domestication
_able, _ible / Able to be / Comparable, admissible
_al, _ial / Related to / cultural, partial
_ity, _y / Consisting of or inclined toward / Authority, rainy
_ness / State, quality, condition, degree / Awareness, eagerness