Welcome to the SERP website for Word Generation.
Word Generation is a middle school academic language program developed under the direction of Harvard University Professor Catherine Snow, one of the nation’s most prominent experts in literacy. The program originated at the SERP-Boston field site in collaboration with teachers and administrators in the Boston Public Schools. It is geared toward all students, in all subject areas, and can be used in all three middle grades simultaneously. The program is strategically designed to create a coherent school-wide effort that gives students the sustained exposure to academic language they need for success in school—even while demanding relatively little (15 minutes, once a week) from any single subject area teacher.

Students find Word Generation engaging.
Teachers report a change in classroom climate as students and teachers listen to each other formulate and defend arguments on important social issues of the day. Initial results for students are promising. While students read, discuss, and write about highly engaging topics, they register gains in vocabulary knowledge, with the largest gains for language minority students. Furthermore, those gains are related to better performance on state accountability tests. Plans are underway for a larger scale field trial.

Explore rationale, view teaching, download materials.
This site allows you to explore the purposes of the Word Generation program, download materials for teachers and students, view videotaped professional development, and observe teachers and students interacting in Word Generation classrooms. You can also share observations and ideas with Word Generation developers and with other teachers who are using the program. We welcome your feedback and input into this ongoing effort.

OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAM