Routine Vocab. Sentences: A Creative Writing Task AND Interactive Experience

A detailed student drawing from what started off as an assignment to merely write 20 vocabulary sentences.

In my 6th, 7th, and 8th grade literature classes, I routinely assign vocabulary words to my students. Vocab. is on a two-week cycle in my class: at the beginning of Week 1, we go over the 20 new words for the cycle. Then, students have until the end of Week 1 to submit 20 carefully-written vocabulary sentences (with context clues!), and I give them a vocabulary quiz at the end of Week 2, which includes ten student-written sentences from the week on the back (the vocab. word is replaced with a blank, and, as part of the quiz, students must fill in the blank with the correct vocabulary word.)

Three years ago, when I first began teaching at my current school, I never imagined that my vocab. assignments would explode into the cacophony of creativity that they are today. Vocabulary has even become the favorite assignment of some of my students, and a few students ask me to upload new vocab. lists early so that they may start on their next assignment. How did this happen?



Originally, my students only had two options for their biweekly vocab. assignment: writing a short story using all 20 vocab. words or composing one thoughtful, specific sentence per vocab. word.

After my very first round of grading the sentences for all 160 of my students in the fall of 2015, I was in awe by their creativity and wit. I wanted to be able to respond not just to the grammatical elements of their writing, but also to give them feedback/a reaction to the content of their sentences. My school has a 1:1 iPad initiative, so all middle school students complete their school work on a school-owned iPad and upload the work to a dropbox app called Showbie, which is what I use to grade the assignments. My school pays for Showbie Pro, which allows us access to one of my favorite features on Showbie: voice notes.

Being able to leave voice notes on a student's work is a game changer. Not only are you saving time by not having to mark each mistake and write out an explanation for why it is a mistake (instead, you can merely circle the error and explain it in the voice note), but recording your own voice on their assignment allows an opportunity to give a more genuine, human reaction to the content, which students love. Students, like all people, love to know that all of their work is not in vain, that their creativity is being appreciated. Several have commented over the years that hearing my voice notes is the highlight of doing their vocab. assignment, and as a result, many of them are encouraged to produce more creative content because they know they will get a reaction from me.

I teach at a Catholic school in which I have the opportunity to teach the entire middle school every year. That means that I get to meet a new group of students in sixth grade and teach them literature every step of the way from grades 6-8, and over time, we build up a rapport. The rapport is built not just in the classroom, but also via our interactions regarding the vocabulary assignments.

For many students, writing 20 sentences for the vocabulary assignment is merely something they complete for a grade: there is neither rhyme nor reason to their sentences; rather, they just write sentences that will fulfill the requirements, and that's it. No shame in that.

For other students, however, the vocab. sentence assignment has become something more. I have students who:

• Write a series of stories through the vocab. sentences that continue for many weeks - or even years! One of my current eighth graders is still writing a series of stories that she started at the beginning of her sixth grade year, and I am impressed by her stunning use of vocabulary even outside of the assigned words! I had twin students a few years ago who love writing and college basketball, so each girl would write a lengthy vocab. story (I'm talking 9-11 pages long, double spaced!) about what would happen if a different college basketball player was her best friend. The results were absolutely incredible, and each story was an engaging read for me, even though I do not follow North Carolina's basketball team.
• Write about the same character/topic every week. I have one student who writes vocab. sentences about the idea of me going home and secretly being the best Fortnite player, despite the fact that I always tell the students that I have never before played that game - because it's the truth! I also had another student who wrote ALL of his sentences for 2.5 years about the final play of the Michigan vs. MSU game from 2015, which was not only traumatizing for me because of the bitterly-disappointing and unnecessary Michigan loss, but also because it occurred on my birthday, adding insult to injury. Somehow, this student found a way to write every vocab. word assigned for 2.5 years into a sentence about this play.)

Ach, the humiliation!

• Write out sentences and then upload three different versions of the document: one in a more standard-sized font, one in very large font, and one in very small font. Each week, I rotate through grading the large, medium, and small-font assignment. One of my eighth grade students does this.
• Create vocab. comics. This trend started last year with a small group of boys who were in sixth grade at the time. The boys are now in seventh grade, and they still continue to draw comics on the Notability app. on their school iPad. In the comics, not only are they displaying their drawing talents and creativity, but they are also successfully able to include all 20 vocab. words with context clues! These comics are extremely well done, too - although the file sizes can get a bit large. The first vocab. comic submitted last year was over 40 pages long and took about 5 minutes to fully load on my iPad, but seeing the end result was worth it because the quality of the comic blew me away! The comic creators are thoughtful, though, and this year, they will split large file sizes in half and upload the comic in two parts to reduce loading time on my iPad. 😀

Characters from the Potatoverse, or the universe filled with potato people.

One of 40 pages of a detailed vocab. comic!

A comic about a stick figure man who explores the apps on a student iPad!

The same student who made the comic directly above also makes a vocab. comic series about the llama universe.

• On the horizon: a vocab. animation? One of my students suggested making a vocab. animation using what he calls "cheap Notability animation". (He recently discovered that he can use the "screen record" function in conjunction with the "move object" function to create, as he says, "cheap animation".) This has not happened yet, but when it does, I will be sure to write about the results.

All of this came out of the simple task of writing 20 sentences. Students felt encouraged to write and express themselves creatively, so they did. They are. They continue to do so. No extra credit to motivate them for thinking outside of the box. Just passion. Pure passion - and they're learning the words and enjoying the process of learning them. (The scores on the vocab. quizzes don't lie!)

Although it takes a while to grade vocab. sentences and leave voice notes for my students, the beauty and creativity of these end results is so inspiring to me. I can't wait to see the other places these students will choose to go with their vocabulary assignments!