4/13/04
SO MUCH TO LEARN, SO LITTLE TIME
I do have a life. I really do! A family, hobbies, and I read and travel. I watch birds, and I do a lot of freelance writing.
But... there’s always that “but,” isn’t there? In my case the “but” is that no matter which of the above I’m engaged in, vocabulary words seem to sneak in and interrupt my concentration. For example, all I was doing this morning was going through the weekly grocery coupons that come tucked in our newspaper when I hit an ad for a new hair product which said, “New, brilliant BRUNETTE®.” There it was: brunette, a word I’d never thought of when writing the word web for
“-ette,” the suffix meaning “little” in lesson 17 of Volume I. Of course, it means “little brown,” brun being the French word for brown. I wonder how many more
“-ette” words I’m still missing!
An article in a business magazine which I would definitely have skipped right over had I not published the “Large, Larger, Largest” PDF (see www.wordwebvocabulary) about large sizes caught my eye. It’s subject? Titanium. Cheap titanium, that is. That certainly would have had no relevance to me before I began defining titan for the bonus lesson mentioned above. To illustrate the connections between a titan (one of a family of giants, the children of Uranus and Gaea, who sought to rule heaven and were overthrown and supplanted by the family of Zeus) and its many modern-day connections, I used examples such as, “John D. Rockefeller was a titan among his peers.“ “Paleontologists say that the recently discovered Paralititan (meaning “tidal giant”) stromeri may have been the largest dinosaur to have walked the earth.” And I added a Think Link which asks, “Which sports team is the Titans?”
From titan, I moved on to titanic, the adjective, as in, “Titanic waves crashed during the hurricane.” “Building the pyramids in Egypt was a titanic undertaking.” And, of course, I included information about the ship Titanic’s maiden voyage and her sinking. Last of all, I provided information about where titanium, the light, strong, silvery metallic element is found and explained some of its uses. A Think Link asked for other uses of titanium. Now, I wish I had known of a corporation’s discovery of a process that makes titanium easier, and therefore far less expensive, to produce than it has been, so that it will soon be used in many more ways.
Although finding new words after I have published is a problem, happily, the reverse is just as apt to occur. A new use of a word, a new product, a new graphic for a word in a future volume jumps between me and whatever I was doing. Today it was a Snickers’ new high energy bar, Marathon®, that will slip right into place on the “-athon” lesson in Volume V. I know students really enjoy finding product names that relate to their vocabulary words, as do I!
Often each day brings one of these revelations. If it does it for me, I’m sure it does the same for you and your students. I wish you’d share some of these broadening insights with me. So much to learn, so little time!
That’s my word for this time. Ellie
Word Web Vocabulary: Moving vocabulary from the
edge of the curriculum to its center
Now in use in over 50 schools in 17 states
