Assignment 1.

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Assignment 1.2: Best Practices Vocabulary Development--Chemistry

Lauren Grokett

National University

MAT 671: Applied Best Practice Strategies in Classroom Instruction

Professor Brandy Prather-Payne

January 12, 2014

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Assignment 1.2: Best Practices Vocabulary Development—Chemistry

1. Common Core State Standards for Chemistry, Typically 10th Grade.

The Common Core State Standards for the 9th and 10th grades call for students to practice six

major activities that are present in nearly all publicly offered classes. These activities include using

context to determine the meaning of unknown words or phrases, consulting general and specialized

reference material to identify exact meanings and usages of unknown terms, identify and correctly use

morphological cues that determine parts of speech or nuances of meaning, double check that the initial

interpretation of terminology is in fact the accepted and complete value for those terms, parse out

idioms or other figures of speech, and analyze subtleties of meaning in words with similar definition

(Ventriglia, pg. 227, 2012).

2. Chemistry standards-based content

The chemistry standard that tends to give most students pause is under category 3: Conservation

of Matter and Stoichiometry, specifically the following points: “d. Students know how to determine the

molar mass of a molecule from its chemical formula and a table of atomic masses and how to convert

the mass of a molecular substance to moles, number of particles, or volume of gas at standard

temperature and pressure; e. Students know how to calculate the masses of reactants and products in a

chemical reaction from the mass of one of the reactants or products and the relevant atomic masses.”

(California Department of Education, 2009). Conservation of Matter and Stoichiometry occupies more

test volume in the California Chemistry Test, one of the CSTs, than any other section totaling 16.7% of

test content—6.7% more than any other category (California Department of Education, 2002).

3. Ten Tier 2 words derived from Chemistry Standards 3d and 3e

Between standards 3d and 3e I have selected ten Tier 2 vocabulary words that will likely prove
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challenging to students: concentration, solution, mole, dimensional analysis, significant figures,

theory, reaction, system, element, and balance.

4. Two Spanish cognates relating to Tier 2 vocabulary words

Two relevant cognates are reacción for reaction and concentración for concentration. It is

worth noting that química means chemistry (Google, 2014). Spanish—as well as French, Italian,

Icelandic, and German—all have very similar sounding words for chemicals, though German and

French names for the elements tend to be rather different. The chemical symbols used on the American

English periodic table do correspond strongly to the element names found in German and French due to

the locations of initial discovery of so many elements.

5. What I would do to teach vocabulary terms for the units on stoichiometry

While I do not currently have a classroom of my own, I have strong expectations for the kind of

classroom I would like and the likely demographics of my students. I want to teach in inner city

schools and I want to focus on students designated as at-risk, likely in Los Angeles County, and

probably speaking Spanish, Armenian, Korean, or Tagalog given in order of prevalence in my area.

These students are frequently reading below grade level in academic English and likely below grade

level in their first language, as well (Lessow-Hurley, 2009). Specially designed academic instruction in

English must be my default teaching behavior because of the measured delivery of speech, repetition,

inclusion of visual representation and explicit development of language skills can only help my

students and especially those for whom English is a second language (ibid). Furthermore, the sciences

in general can be treated as something of a hybrid foreign language because of the vast number of

subject-specific terms and expressions, with chemistry standing as the poster child for unfriendly

chemical names.
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Ventriglia stresses that discussion—not endless drilling—is more effective at developing long-

term vocabulary mastery. Practically speaking, students need several opportunities to discuss the

vocabulary words and relate them to personal experiences or knowledge as a form of scaffolding

(Ventriglia, 2012; Lessow-Hurley, 2009). I like using four column charts: what the word means in

chemistry-specific terms, what the word means in other applications, how the two relate to each other,

and the final column might have drawings, diagrams, mnemonics, or other memory aids. Charts are

useful for “first contact” and students will likely be able to work in pairs, but students need to practice

reading vocabulary as well as using these terms in their own writing. Reading the text is critical to

developing content literacy, which is inclusive of technical reading skills as well as content-specific

media (McKenna & Robinson, 2009) and students will be expected to look for vocabulary terms and

keep a reading log in which they rewrite the sentence employing the word in their own way.

Writing in the sciences is an oft overlooked skill, but as a professional scientist myself I know

all too well that skilled communication is critical to being respected (and employed). Students must be

able to write concise descriptions of experimental procedures and evaluate their findings against the

backdrop of accepted practice, historical and modern relevance. To this end, my students will have

numerous small writing activities—answering why questions or justifying their responses—as well as

formal laboratory reports. Not every writing activity needs to be a crushing assignment and warm-ups

are marvelous opportunities to practice vocabulary development through academic writing. My

favorite non-traditional science-based writing activity is the writing of science fiction, which is never

going to be a major assignment but perhaps merely consistent, with students using their vocabulary

words correctly to write fiction, short biographies of scientists, and discuss the social ramifications of

chemistry-related technologies.
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6. Reflection

There are three tiers of words called out by Ventriglia: Tier 1, such as sight and common use

words; Tier 2, interdisciplinary terminology that is critical to discussion of a variety of subjects but also

inclusive of idioms; and Tier 3, which are the classic subject-specific terms that have exceedingly

specific meanings in narrow applications (Ventriglia, 2012). Tier 2 words are the kinds of terms that

might be easily passed off by a content teacher as something another teacher “ought to have covered”

in previous classes, thus opening the door for glaring omissions in understanding. If students cannot

understand what a question is asking, such as what exactly a student must do to balance an equation,

they might give up entirely because struggling students also tend to have decreased self-esteem and

self-efficacy (Woolfolk, 2012). The Rule of 3 establishes a routine for introducing, discussing, and

using new words—phrased as rehearsal, analysis and production by Ventriglia.

Rehearsal is about establishing familiarity and baseline understanding of the word. Simple

behaviors that draw attention to relevant terms might include spell and say or matching activities

(Ventriglia, 2012), which would be good pre-reading activities. Analytical activities are great in the

sciences because so many words have Greek or Latin roots that provide insight into meaning and can

give students an advantage when parsing out new vocabulary. Additionally, discussing terms in context

differentiates Tier 2 meanings from their respective subjects, such as separating out balance: as in

acrobatics, as in diet, as in chemical equations. It is these nuances and how the words fit in with the

rest of the content (i.e., classification) that helps students understand the big picture of a unit. Finally,

producing their own content gives students an opportunity to process the words differently and more

actively than responding to prompts or filling in maps (Woolfolk, 2012). Students should generate their

own knacks for remembering terms and take the time to find out for themselves how Tier 2 vocabulary

is used in other settings, and ideally deriving additional understanding by relating them.
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Works Cited

California Department of Education. California Department of Education, (2002). California chemistry

standards and test. Sacramento: State Board of Education.

California Department of Education. California Department of Education, (2009) Science Content

Standards for California Public Schools. Retrieved from website:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf

Google. (2014). Google translate. Retrieved from http://translate.google.com/

Lessow-Hurley, J. (2009). The Foundations of Dual Language Learning Instruction (5th ed.). Boston:

Pearson.

McKenna, M. C., & Robinson, R. D. (2009). Teaching through text: Reading and writing in the content

areas. (1st ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education, Inc.

Ventriglia, L. P. D. (2012). Best practices interdisciplinary vocabulary development the rule of 3. (10th

ed.). United States: Younglight.

Woolfolk, Anita (2012-02-08). Educational Psychology (12th Edition). Pearson. Kindle Edition.