Vocabulary Blast Grades: 5-8 Curriculum Connections: Language arts and English Standards Connection:

National Council of Teachers of English/International Reading Association Standards for the English Language Arts, Standard 3: Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics). National Institute for LiteracyReading First/Vocabulary Instruction: Students learn vocabulary directly when they are explicitly taught both individual words and word-learning strategies. Direct vocabulary instruction aids reading comprehension.

Required Software: Microsoft PowerPoint version 2002; Microsoft Internet Explorer 6; three sample PowerPoint files:

What's in this Lesson:

Teacher Guide (including How to Begin) Student Activity, Step by Step: Step A: Explore Language and Build Flashcards Step B: Build an Interactive Vocabulary Quiz

Teacher Guide Summary: Students use online and print dictionaries to research and master vocabulary words, and then use Microsoft PowerPoint templates to build flashcards and interactive, multiple-choice questions.

Objectives:

To study vocabulary in depth, with a focus on definitions and word origin To master vocabulary through interactive quizzing To learn fun ways of using PowerPoint with multiple applications

Time Allotted: Three to four class periods How to Begin:

1. Compile a list of vocabulary words for your students to study in this lesson. The list can be based exclusively on your curricular requirements or include other words that your students have encountered in their reading. 2. Divide your class into groups of two, and assign one or more words to each group. 3. Provide your students with the Flashcard Sample presentation template, and make sure that they understand how to add, delete, and edit text and how to insert new slides. 4. In Step A of the lesson, students create a slide, based on the template, for each of the words assigned to their team. Useful online research sources include: MSN Learning & Research Plus/Dictionary and Thesaurus from Encarta (http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.asp x)Complete online audio pronunciations, definitions, spellings, and a thesaurus listing.

Remind students to cite their sources. 5. Copy the finished flashcard presentations from all teams into a single PowerPoint show for the students to use as a study aid. From the File menu, choose New to create a new blank presentation. Working in slide sorter view, copy each of the student shows, one at a time, and paste them in sequence into the combined presentation. Save the combined presentation to a network location that all your students can access. 6. In Step B of the lesson, each team creates a separate multiple-choice quiz for each of its vocabulary words. Distribute the Multiple Choice Sample template and the Inchoate Multiple Choice presentation to the class. 7. Combine all the multiple-choice presentations into a single PowerPoint presentation as described in steps 5a through 5c above. Edit the last slide to indicate that it is the end of the quiz. 8. For the Assessment portion of this lesson, have each student take the quiz and keep track of his or her score. You might make it a class goal for everyone to achieve mastery (a score of 80 percent or better), and set aside extra time for students to study the flashcards before taking each quiz. Assessment

1. Have students study all of the flashcards for one set of vocabulary words, and then take the quiz. 2. Students can give themselves 10 points for each definition that they choose correctly on the first try, 5 points for each correct answer on the second try, and 0 for the third or fourth try. Each student should keep track of his or her own score. 3. At the end of each quiz, students should figure their percent score by adding up their points and dividing them by the perfect score (10 points times the number of words). Mastery is considered a score of 80 percent or better. Resources MSN Learning & Research Plus/Dictionary and Thesaurus from Encarta Student Activity Step A Explore Language and Build Flashcards 1. Your teacher will provide your team with one or more vocabulary words and a PowerPoint template for a flashcard presentation. The template contains a preformatted sample flashcard that you can edit and use for each of your vocabulary words. Make as many copies of the sample slide as you need. a. Open the Flashcard Sample file. b. In slide sorter view, select the sample slide. On the Edit menu, click Copy. c. Click Paste repeatedly until you have a slide for each vocabulary word.

2. In normal view, replace the sample word at the top of each slide with one of your vocabulary words. Use the classroom or online resources provided by your teacher to find information about each word and replace the sample text: PronunciationList the preferred pronunciation first, followed by any others that you find. Make sure that you can pronounce the word correctly. OriginsMost definitions include the etymology (that is, the origins or history) of the word. Look up the word in multiple sources. Do the etymologies from different sources agree? DefinitionIf there are multiple definitions, include just the first one or two on your slide. FunctionWhat part of speech is your word? What other forms can it take? Sample SentenceDemonstrate your understanding of the word's meaning by using it in an original sentence. Related WordsInclude at least two words that that are related in meaning or origin. Make sure you can explain how they are related. 3. After you've completed Step 2 for each of your vocabulary words, you can customize the look of your presentation. The Format menu provides a variety of commands that let you modify text, colors, and other design elements. 4. You can add a sound file to each slide, so that someone viewing it can actually hear what the word sounds like (if their computer has speakers and necessary software). You can create your own recordings or download them from the Web. To add your own recordings: If your computer has a microphone, you can record your vocabulary words in your own voice and add them to your slides. There are two ways to do this: Insert a recording into a single slide: a. With your slide displayed in Normal view, open the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds, and then click Record Sound. b. Click Record and speak into the microphone. c. When you're done recording, click Stop. d. In the Name box, type the vocabulary word, and then click OK. A sound icon appears on the slide. Use the Record Narration feature to add sound to one or more slides. a. From the Slide Show menu, choose Record Narration. b. In the Record Narration dialog box, you can adjust the sensitivity of your microphone and the quality of your recording. To begin recording, click OK. c. Your presentation will run in Slide Show view while recording. Speak the vocabulary word into the microphone at the point in the show when you want it to be heard. When the show ends, your recording is saved and a sound icon appears on the slide. To download and insert a sound file: Some online dictionaries, such as http://www.yourdictionary.com/, include sound files you can save to your hard drive and then insert into your PowerPoint show:

a. In Internet Explorer, find the online sound you want to download. Right-click the sound file link to open the shortcut menu, and then choose Save Target As. b. In the Save dialog box, rename the file with the name of the vocabulary word and save it to your hard drive. c. In PowerPoint, navigate to the slide you want to add the sound to. In Normal View, click Insert, point to Movies and Sounds, and then choose Sound from File d. In the Insert Sound dialog box, select your saved sound file and then click OK. A sound icon appears on your slide. If you use a downloaded sound in your presentation, be sure to cite the source at the bottom of the slide.

To play back your recording, click (in Slide Show view) or double-click (in Normal view) the sound icon. If you want the recording to play automatically during your slide show, right-click the icon in Normal view and choose Custom Animation from the shortcut menu. The Custom Animation dialog box lets you set the triggers and timing for all animated events in your slide. 5. When all the teams in your class are finished creating their flashcards, your teacher will combine the flashcards into one PowerPoint show that you can use to study all the vocabulary words. Step B Build an Interactive Vocabulary Quiz 1. Now you'll use PowerPoint to make interactive, multiple-choice questions for each of the vocabulary words assigned to your team. To see how these multiple-choice questions will work, review the Inchoate Multiple Choice presentation. Note that slides 2 through 5 are hidden in slide show view and appear only when you link to them from slide 1. 2. To make your own multiple-choice quiz, open the Multiple Choice Sample file provided by your teacher. Begin by editing the text on the first slide: a. Replace the <vocab word> placeholder text with one of your team's vocabulary words. b. Replace one of the <def choice> placeholders with the word's definition, which you can copy from your flashcard slide. c. Replace the other three <def choice> placeholders with "decoy" definitions of other vocabulary words in the combined flashcard presentation compiled by your teacher. For these three decoy definitions, try to choose vocabulary words that are the same part of speech (such as noun, verb, adjective, or adverb) as the word you're testing. 3. Now you can create hypertext links that give the quiz its interactive quality. Link each of the decoy definitions to one of the three Sorry! slides (2 through 4). a. Select one of the decoy definitions on the first slide, right-click it to open the shortcut menu, and then choose Hyperlink. b. In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, click Place in this Document. Select one of the Sorry! slides, and then click OK to close the dialog box.

c. Repeat steps a and b above for the remaining two decoy definitions. d. On each of the Sorry! slides, replace the <decoy> placeholder with the vocabulary word that corresponds to the definition linked to it. If one of your classmates chooses the wrong definition, he or she will at least learn what word it goes with! 4. In the same way that you linked the decoy definitions, link the correct definition to the You're Right! slide at the end of the presentation. 5. View your presentation in Slide Show view, and test all your links. When your presentation is working properly, save the file with the name of the vocabulary word that you're testing. 6. Repeat steps 2 through 5 for each vocabulary word assigned to your team. When you're finished, you'll have a separate multiple-choice quiz for each word. Your teacher will combine the files from all the teams into a single PowerPoint quiz.