#DWHabit - Imagine

Imagine a class full of students, most of them hating to write. Imagine giving them a sticky note and telling them to write five words that they like, or they think are funny, or whatever. When they return the you type them onto a list of words you are collecting to use for their Word of the Day journal entry.

That is what I did today. I decided I would let them give me the words and then put them in a random list generator. One of my students gave me the word "Iridocyclitis". I had never heard of the word. I asked him if he knew what the word meant and he said yes. It is an infection of the iris of the eye. I asked him where he had heard the word and why he chose it. It was on a meme of a spelling bee he had seen. He thought the way the kid in the video pronounced it made it funny and it stuck.  Yes I did put the word on the list.  

My students told me it was hard to write from a single word. I told them I understood it. It meant I was allowing them to be creative and to do their own thinking instead of spoon feeding what I wanted them to read and write.  One of the other students popped up with,  "Yeah, she is trying to help us become autonomous." That was one of their vocab words this week. They struggled with that word. Suddenly when he said that, they all got it. Several said, "Oh, she's trying to teach us to be independent thinkers."

I am so glad that I picked up Word of the Day again. I had no clue what I was going to write until Hector gave me that word and told me the reason he chose it was because it sounded funny. I want words to sound funny and wonderful to my students. I want them to learn to love them. Having them contribute to creating the list of words gave them buy-in. Wish I'd thought of this at the beginning of the year.  I will do this at the beginning of the year next year.  This will give me enough words for at least two school years.