I've heard of a lot of good ideas for creative vocabulary activities recently, at Edcamp and on Edmodo. (Using selfies to illustrate emotions, for example.)
My middle school students are working with descriptive adjectives right now, and I had them select a few of the adjectives and illustrate them. Many of my more artistically inclined students chose to draw the images themselves, but they could also find photos and images online or cut them from magazines and newspapers. This was a required assignment for 6th grade, and an optional extension activity for 7th and 8th, who were finishing up another project.
Here is the assignment sheet and rubric that I used.
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| (One very artistic student illustrated the adjectives using all Harry Potter characters.) |
Students who submitted digital illustrations were able to present them to the class, and those who turned in hard copies of their illustrations used them to create a pretty fabulous word wall in the classroom.
I have used student examples during bell work to practice recognizing
the adjectives, which has been more engaging than just using my own
examples.
I'm curious to see the results of this week's vocabulary quiz, especially the for the students who didn't do so well on our last assessment but who really got into the illustrations. I think that students' enjoyment of any activity is a pretty good indicator of its success... or at least how likely students are to do it in a timely manner. (Assignments that are fun to grade are also more likely to be graded in a timely manner.)
I'll definitely be using similar assignments in the future. Any other ideas for creative vocabulary assignments?
