What Have Others Wrote About Similar Questions?

One article that we found was right on with our question. "A Professional Development Initiative for Developing Approaches to Vocabulary Instruction With Secondary Mathematics, Art, Science, and English Teachers" had some interesting things to say about this subject. Unfortunately, like it is stated in this article, there is a great need for research about this particular subject in actual settings, and it was hard to find any information on it. Never the less, this article addresses some key issues.

This article is about a study that was done at Alleghany in North Carolina. It explored ways in which teachers were teaching vocabulary, and then analyzed for effectiveness. Four high school teachers were observed, and the evidence suggested that "the most effective methods for instruction 'emphasized multimedia aspects of learning, richness of context in which words are to be learned, and the number of exposures to words that learners will receive." During this study, the importance of the following aspects of vocabulary instruction became apparent:

• " Teacher commitment to vocabulary development in terms of planning and class time
• Willingness to complete experiment with a variety of instructional approaches as needed
• Setting learning goals in terms of developing rich representations of word meanings as well as an understanding of how words work
• Facilitating student access to multiple sources of information
• Providing support and encouragement for students to discover connections among words, including forms of words and related words
• Giving students opportunities to create multiple representations of words
• Highlighting cross-curricular connections
• Sustaining commitment to activity based approaches
• Acknowledging the social dimension of classrooms by providing chances for students to work together and present and perform with their peers
• Developing interesting assessments involving multiple contexts for focusing on word meanings and features of words."
  

Ms. Link, the art teacher in this study, provided some good examples of these aspects of vocabulary instruction. One of the classes that she instructs is called "Interdisciplinary Art." In this class, relationships between art and other specific content areas (such as math, science, and literature) are analyzed. A unit on art and literature, for example, poses questions that the students have to answer through detailed exploration. One question was "How can you combine text and images to make a collage that sends a paradoxical, satirical, or ironic message about the world we live in. Not only did the students learn art terms (collage), but traditional literary terms as well (parody, satire, irony). She also connected these words to the students every day experiences, by having them listen to songs which described irony, like Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic." They also found examples in art such as parodies of the Mona Lisa, like the Mina ressed in camouflage smoking a cigarette. This is a great example of highlighting cross-curricular connections, and facilitating student access to mulitple sources of information.

Ms. Link also taught a course called "Thematic Art." In this class she applies an approach called synetics. This is a "process of connecting different things in a variety of ways...For example, Ms. Link asked students to connect a word to colors and sensory experience. In a unit about plaster work that included isolation as a vocab word, she asked students to respond to these questions: What does isolation feel like? What color is it? What texture? She also invited students to create anagrams and analogies for terms." This is also a great example of making cross-curricular connections, as well as relating vocab to real life experiences.