Living Word Maps: Developing Fluency with Academic Terms

The class gathers to hear a group debrief their word map.

Today, Windsor 6 students worked together to practice and expand their understanding of key terminology in our expedition. Since our students are preparing to become meteorologists and will be writing and filming documentaries/forecasts about their storm, it's important that they can fluently utilize key terms.

6th graders love to talk! So why not get them talking about what we're learning? This activity provided access to different types of learners, providing a visual context for the terms and lots of language modeling for English learners. Students deepened their conceptualization of the terms by making their own meaning and sharing their ideas aloud.

Our class broke into 5 table groups. Each table split a stack of 16 terms. They took turns building a living word map. As students added their words to the map, they explained the meaning of the term and how it connected to other terms in the map. They were able to work as a group to build and deepen understanding of the content. Our learning target was: "I can determine environmental and economic impacts of a hurricane." After the table groups constructed their word maps, we concluded the activity by circling one table and allowing a group to explain their word map with the rest of the class.

- Mr. Shaddox