Week 4 Term 3 - Word associations

We become what we associate ourselves with. Whether it is people or values and beliefs, typically what we align ourselves with is manifested in our character. The same can be said for word associations. Every word has a team of words that have some type of association to it. This next part of the Word Group program enables the students to explore word associations to the focus word 'survive'. Below I have detailed how this next step took place. 

Reviewing + Unpacking the grammatical role

• Review the shared sentences from the Shared Sentences: 9KLe (click on the link to access the presentation) - Dr Jannie asks the students to share how they crafted the sentence.
• Dr Jannie asked the students how they could change the sentence structure - where can they edit and add proper punctuation. The purpose of this is to show the students how to craft a sentence, enforce what a sentence is (a contained idea that can stand on its own).

Looking at word associations to ‘survive’

• Word associations to ‘survive’ are introduced. We refer to the original powerpoint WORD WORKS focusing on part 4 onwards. (click on the link to access the presentation)
• Dr Jannie highlights her word associations to ‘survive’ - take the risk, believe in yourself, give up easily, adapt and adjust, genetic variation, family supported, think through and consider
• Students then talk to each other and explain why Dr Jannie has chosen ‘take the risk’ links to survive. They then share their thoughts with the class.
• Dr Jannie then explains how ‘take the risk’ links to ‘survive’ and shares a written explanation to the students. At times, taking a risk can result in a disaster. The five high school boys killed in a car accident last weekend is an example. High risk resulted in four deaths and the miraculous survival of the driver. His decision as a driver has had disastrous consequences.
• Dr Jannie and I asked the students to talk about what the association for ‘genetic variation’ has to ‘to survive’. Some great discussion going with the students and great feedback!
• Now the students will have to come up with their own associations and then they have to explain the association with how it links to survive. The students on a shared presentation: Student Word Association (click on the link to access the presentation)
• Both Dr Jannie and I worked with the students in groups and one-on-one. In speaking with two groups, we started to talk about reality television, in particular ‘Survivor’ and what the contestants had to do in order to survive. The students used these ideas such as ‘facing a challenge’ and ‘cheating to get to the end’ (ideas they thought of from the Survivor series) as their association to ‘survive’.
• Some students used the association of ‘mental health’ and ‘therapy’ as a form of survival.
• We will continue to work through the word associations with the students and get them to share their explanations of their associations.
• Dr Jannie said that there are no right or wrong answers, they only have to justify their word association.

MY THOUGHTS

I really enjoyed this part of the program. Initially the students took some time getting settled with this step but once the discussion (small group discussions) happened the students started to connect and engage. One group in particular started to talk about reality television shows such as 'Survivor' and 'The Voice' and how the contestants on these shows experience survival. This conversation alone was a great springboard in that it helped the students to find other associations and meanings that connect to 'survive'. Some students found connections with mental health and how tools such as talking and therapy is an act of 'surviving' or getting through a difficult challenge. I have asked Dr Jannie to continue working through word associations as I believe that there was some rich learning going on. Going into Week 4 we will continue to work through this step of the program and then finally work through the final step.