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teachwire.net/secondary The Vocab Clinic Support your students towards better language use, with the help of our resident word-wizard, AlexQuigley... TRY THIS TODAY: WORD TRIPLETS Successful students select the right tools for the job. A historian writing an essay, an artist annotating their sketches or a geographer writing up a case study will all require some well-chosen academic vocabulary.The ‘Word Triplets’ strategy offers students three words to choose from, or synonyms, so that we can begin to shape their apt vocabulary selections. In history, for example, you may offer students the choice between ‘possibly’,‘perhaps’ and ‘certainly’ to describe a specific source. Students then select from the triplet and have to use the word and justify its use. By offering up potential answers, you let students concentrate on precise word choices, thereby honing their writing skill. Cracking the academic code Our students often know intuitively what makes for good academic writing, but we don’t quite have the terminology to describe it. One such stylistic feature that students can use, often without quite knowing why it is effective, is the passive voice. It helps to define an impersonal, academic-sounding perspective. For example, ‘I interviewed six people’ in Business Studies could be shifted grammatically into the passive, resulting in ‘Six people were interviewed’. The personal touch is removed and an academic distance is achieved. Alex Quigley is the author of Closing the Vocabulary Gap . He also works for the Education Endowment Foundation as national content manager, supporting teachers to engage with research evidence. I DON'T THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS... FACTOR Inmathematics = a number or algebraic expression that divides another number or expression evenly. In history or geography = a circumstance, fact, or influence that contributes to a specific result. DO THEY KNOW? One in four students in year 7 did not meet the ‘expected standard’ for reading in their year 6 SATs examinations. ONE FOR: ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDENTS CATHARSIS Derives from: Greek, meaning to ‘purify’ or ‘purge’. Means: the emotional release experienced by a reader or audience, such as at the ending of a tragedy. Related concepts: ‘tragedy’ and ‘comedy’ NB: The Greek origins of ‘catharsis’ derive from the famous philosopher, Aristotle, who was the very first literary critic. His ideas have greatly influenced the history of drama and literature. One word at a time The word ‘Victorian’ has changed over time and has quickly (well, at least in terms of the history of our language) become synonymous with not only an age, but an entire world-view. The word is an eponym – that is to say, a word named after a person. Other notable examples include ‘sandwich’, ‘Alzheimer’s’ and ‘leotard’. Though the term ‘Victorian’ originally denoted the age of empire under the reign of the long-standing queen, over time the meaning has broadened. Nowadays, perhaps unfairly, the term has garnered associations with conservativism, repressed sexuality and being somewhat old-fashioned. 19