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Features of the Word Generation Program

common

Common Themes in Different Classes

The Word Generation program is built upon the idea that students learn new words best from multiple encounters with those words within meaningful contexts. While there are some core features that are common across school settings, other aspects of the program may vary from school to school.

Word Generation’s approach to word study relies on collaboration among teachers throughout the school. The power of Word Generation stems in part from the fact that all of the participating teachers and students focus on the same five words from the Academic Word List (AWL) each week. Participating teachers are only responsible for teaching one Word Generation activity per week for 10-15 minutes. While Word Generation’s curriculum provides weekly activities, the program is designed to be flexible enough to accommodate local variations at different schools. Each participating school develops a customized implementation plan that is responsive to its schedules, staffing patterns, and other particular circumstances.

elements

Core Program Elements

• Focus on the Academic Word List – a set of word families that appear frequently in academic texts across disciplines

• Word study curriculum materials, including high-interest paragraphs and associated activities, designed for flexible use by middle school teachers across the curriculum

• Expectation that schools will dedicate at least 15 instructional minutes a day to school-wide (or grade-wide) study of weekly words

• Opportunity for each school team to design a practical implementation plan that suits its own particular school context

read

Readability

Adolescents develop academic literacy skills when they feel motivated and are engaged with reading, discussing, and producing texts. Word Generation’s developers selected the weekly paragraph topics for their relevance to middle school students’ interests and lives as well as their connections to the curriculum. Collectively, these paragraphs represent a range of content areas, with some focusing on humanities topics and others highlighting science and math. They are written for sixth-grade readability and demonstrate authentic use of important general-purpose vocabulary. These brief paragraphs are intended to spark rich, substantive conversation among students and their teachers. They are not expected to provide complete coverage of the topics at hand, though teachers are encouraged to point interested students to additional information about the topics when it seems appropriate.

plus More About the Materials
As the creators of Word Generation, we have focused on developing classroom materials that engage adolescents in tasks that promote academic literacy as part of content-area instruction. These materials include the following.

• A teacher’s guide that explains the structure of the Word Generation program and the rationale behind it

• A set of 20 engaging paragraphs that connect to real world issues and to students’ lives

• Brief daily instructional activities associated with weekly topics and AWL words

• Additional ideas for school-wide vocabulary study

• References and other resources to support teachers in implementing Word Generation activities

Each week’s words are embedded in a paragraph meant to launch a discussion and stimulate student thinking, talking, and writing. The program also includes a list of “background” words (i.e., other AWL words occurring in the paragraphs) as well as “additional” words that might be worth highlighting for discipline-specific vocabulary discussions, ELL support, and other activities each week.

Students participating in the program are expected to maintain WG notebooks, which they take to all of their classes. Each Monday, teachers introduce a weekly paragraph that focuses on a contemporary issue. Each Friday, students are asked to write a paragraph arguing a position on the weekly topic, using as many words as possible from the cumulative word list. Mid-week activities are designed to ensure repeated exposure to the weekly vocabulary and focus on how the words are used in math, science, social studies, and/or English language arts. Additional fun, school-wide reinforcement activities are also recommended.

 
 
Boston Public Schools
SERP and
Boston Public Schools collaborated on the development of Word Generation
  
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Leon Lowenstein
Foundation, Inc.

Who are the people who developed Word Generation? Find out!
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