Words in Context

Malinda Paige: Now, you think about geometry as math, but we see geometry in the world. Can you think of some places in the world in which you have seen geometry? Anna?

Anna: Jewelry.

Paige: Jewelry, good. Now, what ways have you seen geometry in jewelry?

Anna: Necklaces. They have circles and diamonds and stuff.

Paige: Good answer. Do we any other students who have seen geometry in the world? Iyan?

Iyan: With buildings?

Paige: Can you tell us about some of the shapes that buildings may have?

Iyan: A square.

Paige: All right, good. What about the tops of buildings?

Iyan: Oh, triangle!

Paige: The point is to allow the kids to learn about the words, to focus on those words, and to be able to use them in context and see them in context. And to be able to relate them to their everyday life.

Paige: OK, today we are going to use a graphic organizer for the vocabulary words that we will be using in geometry. It’s called “Words in Context Graphic Organizer." Each of you will have a copy at your table.

Paige: When I’m planning a lesson and thinking about a strategy that I would like to use, I look at whether I need to introduce vocabulary. And if I’m going to introduce vocabulary, then I want to choose a strategy that would have a graphic organizer that focuses on vocabulary.

Paige: We are going to take nine of the words that are part of geometric ideas, and we'll be using them today. And as we work through this geometry unit, you will be adding to your vocabulary in your math journals. So, if everyone will take a look to the front, I will model for you how we are going to fill this in. First of all, this organizer starts at the top with a sentence from the text. So we’ll take a sentence which will have one of the geometry terms in it, and we’ll place that sentence in our top square. Then, if we look in the middle, there’s a target word. The target word will be the vocabulary word for geometry that we want to stress. That will be underlined, and we’ll place the target word in this square so that we can just focus on this one word. Once we have this word, we are going to look to the right of this organizer. There are boxes that show “is.” What do you think that “is” may be related to? Caroline?

Caroline: Maybe what it means?

Paige: OK, the “is” shapes will be used for synonyms, words that may be what? What’s a synonym?

Girl 1: Another word that means the same thing?

Paige: Excellent. That means the same thing. Now we have the shapes on the left side. And, by the way, what shape is this? T.J.?

T.J.: An oval?

Paige: An oval. Great. And we have “is not” in the ovals. What do you think the “is not” side will represent. Tyler?

Tyler: Something that is not the same as the word.

Paige: If we’re using synonyms on this side, what do you think? Not the same or the opposite would be? Karen?

Karen: Antonym.

Paige: Antonym, wonderful. The examples at the bottom are going to used to relate it to everyday life—what we talked about at the beginning of how it connects to the world and how we see these geometry terms in the world. This is where you’re going to place all of those wonderful examples you were giving me and more. You're going to think of examples.

Source: From The Lesson Collection, Tape 33—Mathematics: Words in Context (Intermediate) (VHS), 2003, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.