October 23, Benjamin's Chapter 5, Vocabulary: word for word

As a future Earth Science teacher I found Benjamin's chapter on vocabulary particularly useful. There's a good deal of scientific vocabulary germane to my field, and Benjamin offers comprehensive strategies for helping kids gain ownership of these specific words. I particularly liked Benjamin's suggestion of writing two sentence definitions, with the first sentence emphasizing the facts, (left brain oriented), and the second sentence drawing a comparison, or using the word in a descriptive way, (right brain oriented.) 

The idea of engaging both the right brain and left brain in writing a single definition is brilliant. I'm wondering if the same idea couldn't be used in other writing assignments? So often in science we're focused on just the facts, (left brain.) But could there also be a place in a scientific writing assignment for imagination, whimsy, and creativity? It seems that Benjamin would argue that if you can use both the left and right brain in learning, the retention of the information and concepts is improved. She doesn't offer any real evidence that this is true, but it certainly seems logical to me.

Teaching specific vocabulary could be done in a number of ways, The basic assumption, that by learning a new word students also are learning a concept, makes sense. Benjamin breaks down definitions and offers a step by step approach to writing them. I'm not sure her formula has to be followed to a tee, but certainly its nice to have a clear understanding of a successful approach to teaching the writing of definitions.  

Regarding using vocabulary in lessons, I could conceive of unit on astronomy, for example, starting with the introduction of a list of vocabulary words such as: black hole, big bang theory, brown dwarf, virgo supercluster, extraterrestrial life, elliptical orbit, astroid field, magnetic field, solar nebula, galaxy, solar wind, corona, accretion and gas giant. Some of the students might have a vague idea of what some of these terms mean, but I think most wouldn't. The unit then could be an exploration to uncover the meanings of these words. This might be a different way to teach a unit, but it could work, and I think by focusing on words, we pinpoint and clarify ideas.    

I felt Benjamin's list of verbs, though interesting in theory, were less useful in practice. Do we really need to separate verbs from nouns? Although her idea of the importance of verbs is provocative I think teaching the noun "convection," works just as well as teaching the verb "convecting." 

In conclusion, I agree with Benjamin that teaching vocabulary is important. Not only does it help a student write, but it helps a student understand the major concepts that he or she is studying. As teachers we need to put some time and effort into helping students make new field-specific vocabulary part of a growing lexicon.