4.

2 – Vocabulary Instruction and Development

For my Humanities 8 class we read the short story “On the Sidewalk Bleeding” by Evan Hunter.
This is in preparation for reading The Outsiders and is a good primer text for some of the time
period specific vocabulary terms. The vocabulary terms we define are:
- Scripted
- Excruciating
- Comparative
- Rumble
- Jump
- Project
- Turkeyed
For some of the words like scripted, jump, and project there are multiple meanings and it can
be difficult to understand what the context is. According to the Word Generation webpage
myth number three states that “the most common approach to vocabulary instruction is to ask
students to look words up in the dictionary” (2021). Just as how today we have slang definitions
of common words (“snake” for a liar, “lit” for something impressive) the 1960s had their own,
like turkeyed, and rumble. Getting ELLs to understand that the dictionary is only a starting point
is one of my aims. For the other words like comparative and excruciating my aim is to introduce
the students to these words, if they are not already familiar with them. That way they can build
their vocabulary and have a few more “formal” sounding words.

Kucan also agrees that dictionaries, while useful, “will not support students in developing their
own rich mental lexicons” (2012, p. 361). This leads me to the different strategies I would use to
support my students’ vocabulary. Prior to reading I have my students list (either in Nearpod, or
on the board) all of the (school appropriate) slang terms they know. From there we then define
them, so words like “snake” and “lit” are always up on the board, we then look at the dictionary
and see if their slang definitions match what the dictionary states. When it does not (for the
most part) I ask them where they learned these words. From there we talk about the use of
language, how there are different words for different situations, and how the English language
continues to evolve.

Follow-up Activities:

Activity 1 – Act out an event from before the story

This activity comes from Kucan’s article “What is Most Important to Know About Vocabulary?”
where she says one way of encouraging students’ interaction with words is to get them to work
“in small groups to create pantomimes or skits that demonstrate word meanings” (pg. 366).
“On the Sidewalk Bleeding” alludes to a lot of events before the story takes place – this activity
would have students create a script collaboratively and then present their version of what
happened before to the class. They would need to incorporate at least two of the vocabulary
words into their script. One of the reasons why this activity would be beneficial for additional
exposure is that there are only a few scenes students could realistically choose from the story.
This way students will have not only their own script/skit to go off of but also other groups’ as
well. The one thing to keep in mind when having students act out parts from before the short
story is the level of violence. The other is making sure enough trigger warnings are given to
students so they can be cognizant of their mental health.

Activity 2 – Creative write

Building on our previewing activity I would have students write eulogy for Andy (keeping in
mind that I would also have to explain what a eulogy is to my students). Eulogies, depending on
who is giving them, can be formal or informal in nature. For the students they would be forced
to write in an informal tone, as one of Andy’s Royal friends, and use language from the 60s. This
way they would have to use the vocabulary terms we already learned in a creative manner. This
also primes them for the eulogy they will have to write for Johnny in The Outsiders.
Additionally, this would be a formative assessment so students are prepared for the Johnny
eulogy which would be part of the summative assessments I give to the students at the end of
The Outsiders.

References

Kucan, L. (2012). What is most important to know about vocabulary? The Reading

Teacher, 65(6), 360-366. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.01054

WordGen Weekly. (2021). About Vocabulary Instruction. Bridging Research, Practice, Design in

Education | SERP Institute. https://www.serpinstitute.org/wordgen-weekly/vocabulary-

instruction