AVReading Newsletter September-- Vocabulary of Empowerment
For my Ice Breaker this fall, I have designed an activity around the vocabulary of empowerment. It’s fairly simple. I grabbed 50 words from the recommended SAT Word List that had connotations of positive outcomes (e.g. aspirational, buoyant, cerebral, illustrious etc). Students then look up their given word and have to look up its meaning and discuss with partners how the word might reflect a positive quality they could apply to their new school year. After sharing out their findings, I then spotlight the word “agency”—the ability to take action, to have control over one’s direction in life. I turn it into a lesson about how we don’t need to be defined by our environment or our past or the expectations of others, but by our own hopes and dreams. Beginning high school is one of those transitional moments when students can have the agency or autonomy...