Does anyone have a creative slogan for overused words like said, walked, cute, etc. I want to encourage my students to use a thesaurus and punch up their writing.
I saw a teacher website that had a small bulletin board with a graveyard on it. The words were written on the headstones. Next to the headstones, there were flowers with new words on it to replace the dead ones.
For example, the word big was written on a headstone. The flower next to it had synonyms on the petals and leaves.
When I taught 4th we called them "dead" words - because it all started with the word SAID. Said is dead - and then other words died too! It sounds morbid as I type this but it didn't seem so at the time!
worked well for the fifth grade-on headstone was the word, flower represented the better words, "Dead Words are buried here"...we even had the funeral music playing...it is visual and the kids loved adding words onto the flowers...
We use step up to writing and our last sentence is our conclusion where we restate our topic, but tell how we feel about it (I teach 2nd grade). My kids were using the same feeling over and over again so I made a bulletin board call "Word Jail" It had gray construction paper lines and inside the "bars" I would put the words. They could visit the word jail once a week, which means that they could use one of those words once a week.
Later in the month I made another bulletin board into a "Garden of Synonyms and Antonyms" Synonyms were on flowers, the overused word would be in the middle and the words from the thusauasis(sp) would be on the petals. Each flower had a patch of grass with 4 blades and we wrote 4 anyonyms of the overused word.
The kids loved both of them! At first I wasn't sure of the "word jail", but my principle thought it was okay so I tried it!
I found pictures of both boards at the beginning of using them
This is the word jail with the words we added on the first day. I had the kids tell me what words should go on there, by the end of the year we had about 20 words on there, some of them synonyms of the 1st overused word.
I teach fifth grade and we use "Said is dead!" For our halloween bulletin board I made a tombstone shaped from white foam and wrote: Said is dead! RIP 10/96 and then surrounded it with ghost cutouts that had words the kids came up with that could replace "said"....may be too much for lower grades but my kids loved it!
we bury very, tell like to take a hike, put said to bed, think twice about using nice, tell so its got to go, send and to another land, tell then we won't use it again
I know of a fourth grade teacher who uses the book "Fancy Nancy" (I don't remember the author) to introduce overused words. It's an excellent book that uses humor and a story to communicate the idea of "fancying up" language. Then the teacher reminds the students to use the thesaurus to "fancy up" their language.
A professor in college called overused words "curse words" because they're just "bad" words you can't use! I had a fifth grade inner city class that LOVED it, they even started using more vivid vocabulary in their speech because they didn't want to "curse." I use it with my 7th grade students now, and they like it, too. It sparks their interest when you say "ok kids, today we're going to talk about curse words!"
I go the "Positive" way with my class...I encourage my class to use "MILLION DOLLAR WORDS" rather than "Hundred Dollar Words"... They love it! I also have a copy of a fake million dollar bill which I hand out to them when I read one of their writing pieces that includes a "Million Dollar Word" for the first time or a writing piece that includes "Million Dollar Words" that beat their own record in previous writing samples. They love collecting their "millions"!
In eighth grade, we used Graveyard Words as well. I didn't have a bulletin board - what I did was split the kids into pairs one computer lab period. Each pair had one word for the Graveyard. They used SMART Ideas software to create a web of synonyms for the word I gave them. The pair with the most synonyms for their word got a little treat. I then put all of those pages in a little booklet with a Graveyard Words title page, and I kept it at the side of the room with my writing resources for my students to use.
I too put these common words in jail! Kids LOVE it. I type the words at about a 66 size font in black. When I cut them out I then draw bars on top of the word before putting them up.
Thanks everyone! I have just found this site by accident and I love the graveyard idea. I am going to be teaching a small group of Korean children for a month in January. The problem is I have no idea about ages, except Junior School level, nor about ability. I also teach Korean children privately and some of them are totally without any English knowledge at all, so I am trying to do some planning that will cover all eventualities!
Hullo. I'm an 8th grader, and I'm writing a novel, and this is a tremendous help. another idea, which my teacher does, is Visual Vocab. Using windows Movie Maker, she gives each student a "new" word : Odious,ect. The student has to make a video that is 2-3 minutes long which informs the watcher of the meaning. You can make a video with your friends, showing how you know and understand the word, ect. It's a great way to introduce new words into writing, as you then show all the videos that have been turned in to the class. They learn in a creative way!! It really works!
We use banned, taboo or retired island. Where we write the worn out words on the island, and in the water we put examples of words we should be using. I use this in a grade 4 classroom.
In my fourth grade classroom we call overused words COW words (Commonly Overused Words) and we make them into WOW words (Wonderfuly Outstanding Words). This allows the students to the "bad words" and make them good.
Write the overused word on the body of a bee. Use 2 hearts for wings. One the wings, have students write synonyms for the overused word. They came out really cute!
08-11-2007, 04:37 AM
on it. The words were written on the headstones. Next to the headstones, there were flowers with new words on it to replace the dead ones.
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