Once again award-winning writer and educator Bob Greenman takes us on a journey through words selected from More Words That Make a Difference, a delightful book illustrating word usage with passages from the Atlantic Monthly. Here Bob finds himself navigating the seamy underbelly of Manhattan parking. Continue reading...
With this column we welcome Bob Greenman, author of Words That Make a Difference and More Words That Make a Difference, as a regular contributor to the Visual Thesaurus. Here Bob uses words from the latter book, with illustrative passages from The Atlantic Monthly, to muse on a great love of his life. Continue reading...
It's that time again, the annual look back at the noteworthy words of the year. Were you worried about dangling over the fiscal cliff, or did you have more of a devil-may-care YOLO attitude? Were you more interested in mansplaining or hate-watching? Here's a roundup of words that's not just a bunch of malarkey. Continue reading...
Flexible and inflexible are opposites, but flammable and inflammable are not. Why is this? From a morphological and contextual perspective, Susan Ebbers discusses how to help students come to grips with confusing words, including inflammable, impregnable, and infamous.Continue reading...
Last week we presented the first part of our interview with New York Times columnist William Safire about the latest edition of Safire's Political Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2008), a thoroughgoing guide to the nuances of American political lingo. In part two, Safire explores how the discourse of politics has changed since the previous edition of the dictionary was published in 1993. It's a peculiar terrain full of moonbats and wingnuts, where pork-busters decry the bridge to nowhere. Continue reading...
The New York Times is a vocabulary-learning bonanza for students at all levels, employing a larger number of what teachers would call "vocabulary words" than any other American publication. And inside The Times, every day, there's a bonanza within that bonanza, the succinct and telegraphic television listings page, whose capsule movie reviews employ more vocabulary — including words, terms and expressions — than any other page in the paper. And quite enjoyably, too. Continue reading...
By this point in January, you've probably vacuumed all but the last few crumbs of New Year's Eve confetti out of the rug. Have you kicked your vocabulary-learning resolutions to the curb as well? Continue reading...
Thinking of teaching Twelve Years a Slave after Sunday's Oscar win? Here we link to teaching materials and new vocabulary lists to help you bring the story to life. Continue reading...
In an opinion piece in Education Week, research neuropsychologist Steven L. Miller argued that education technology should be used to close "30 million word gap." Its ability to personalize learning makes it faster than anything a teacher can do in a classroom, and with the gap ever-widening, speed is key. Continue reading...
Teachers: One of the best ways to motivate your students on Vocabulary.com is to show them evidence of their own success. But how do you define "success"? Set a goal. Here, we share eight strategies we've observed from real teachers using Vocabulary.com in their classrooms. The strategies can be used in schools and classrooms large and small, and range from goals for individual learners to leaderboards that put word learning in a national, and highly competitive, context. Continue reading...