Fresh and Exciting word wall.... Help!!

[Chris Sloan]

Does anyone have a good idea for a good looking word wall. Trying to stay away from the boring and simple words on a board. I know this might sound strange, but looking for something new and fresh for voc words.

[HeyMrsTE4chr]

I've been thinking about vocab, too. It seems Common Core (& all of my State Test Data) says that students know content-specific terms but don't understand "Tier 2" vocab.  Words like "dissension" or "inequality" that aren't part of the content but help make the content make sense.  I'm thinking of making something related to the Tier 2 words I use in class.  

In response to your question:  I've used strings and made my word walls into literal "webs" that connect related terms.  The kids thought they looked cool, which means they looked at them!  Win!

I love wordle and I also like tagxedo for word clouds

[Jennifer Ervin]

I like your "web" idea...I may have to steal it! :)

 

[Chris Sloan]

Great idea! Thanks!

[Jennifer Ervin]

This is an issue that I, too, have been struggling with.  Currently, my students are creating the word wall by writing a word, defining it, drawing an illustration to represent the word, and using it in a sentence.  At least it gets the students invested in the word wall...

 

Please keep me posted on additional ideas you receive or come up with...

 

[Jason Eifling]

I was thinking about putting words into categories.  I used the GRAPES method of introducing characteristics of cizilizations, and I was going to have words put into those categories vs. just having words on a wall.

[Chris Sloan]

What is the GRAPES method?

[HeyMrsTE4chr]

Guessing:  

Government Religion Art/Architecture People(?) Economics Social

       Power (?)

 

I like this acronym.  In college, we called it "SPERM" for social, political, economic, religion, & military but I am certainly not going to do that or even switch it around to something similar because I KNOW it'll become sperm in no time (MERPS, PERMS, etc.)  I like GRAPES!  Fun!

[Jason Eifling]

It is basically like what was stated here asa well.  I have heard it called SPRITE, PERSIA, and SPERM as well.  I do grapes because I used to feed the students grapes or sprite when I introduced the topic.  It is a pretty easy way to categorize different characteristics of a civilization.  I think there is a poster set of this out there as well somewhere.

G - Geography features

R - Religion

A - Achievements

P - Political

E - Economic

S - Social Structures (Society)

[Chris Sloan]

Thanks for the great information!

[Chris Sloan]

Had a thought, by putting the words into categories such as people, places, ideas, and government it may help students better understand the words and how they are all connected. Just thinking out loud. May not work, but it is worth a try.

[Mary Lou Buell]

I have a "key term worm" that runs above one of the white boards in my 9th grade classroom. It's not for all the terms we study, just the 40 or so that are repeated again and again throughout the year. I make it with construction paper circles about 6 inches in diameter. I'll post a pic where you can see the worm in the background. It's the only pic I have right now, sorry if it's not entirely clear. It does seem a little juvenile for high school, but the kids like it and understand that these are the most important terms we study all year.

[Chris Sloan]

Thank you so much for post and pic!