Great article about teaching connotation

Laura sent this to me today, and I think it would be great for bringing in to a reading class.  I'm always trying to teach connotation, but it is tricky.  This article offers some great ideas.

Fun new resources

Just wanted to share a few fun new resources I found through Twitter (really, you should join Twitter!)

Vocab Genii - a fun vocabulary building game online. I played it and came across several words from the Academic Word List, which I use with students all the time.

Room for Debate - a wonderful resource from the New York Times, with articles about current events and controversial issues. 

StringNet - great tool that allows you to see how words are used in context.  This would be excellent for vocabulary building.

Classroom 2.0 - a social network for teachers who are interested in using technology and social media in the classroom.  I just joined, and there are lots of great groups discussing many different issues in educational technology.

Create your own comic strip

Found this cool tool today from ReadWriteThink: It's a Comic Creator, and it looks like a really fun way to practice vocabulary.  Students can create their own comic strips online.  What a fun way to make vocabulary teaching more dynamic! If you try it out, let me know.  I'd love to know if students enjoy this activity.

I originally found all of this from a nice blog post on another blog about teaching vocabulary. I liked this quote from their post:

Multiple-choice tests aren’t necessarily bad, but there are many other ways you can go about creating authentic assessments when determining the level of reading comprehension.  The same is true and possibly more important for evaluating vocabulary comprehension.  Retention, not just memorization, is key.

Do you have any interesting articles or blog posts to share?  Please leave a comment!