Vocabulary and One Tree Hill

The discontent that I had been feeling was washed away in an instant when I got to do something I loved and was good at: teaching new teachers what they need to do to be successful. I was in my element...sharing ideas, inspiring new teachers, and talking about what I feel most strongly about - building academic literacy and vocabulary in the content area classes.

What was awesome was that everyone was LISTENING to me and TAKING NOTES. Notes, people. Listening to me, finding it so important that they summarized in their heads and WROTE it down.

And my favorite - one of my best "building vocabulary" ideas - is to teach the students random words that are exciting and show them how interesting our language actually is. So I asked the group: what is it called when you have a group of crows. No one knew, so I told them it was called a murder of crows.

Then I asked, "what is it called when you have a group of ravens?" And a girl goes: "Its called an unkindness, right?" I answered, "Yes, it is. Wow, you're brilliant!" And she replied, "I'm no genius. I just watch a lot of One Tree Hill."