Activity: The Power of Words - How They Reflect Our Attitudes and Values, by Jason Albert

Overview

This activity allows students to recognize the power of language to reveal individual and community attitudes about specific issues. Specifically, students will be given sentences that make controversial statements about an issue. However, within each sentence, there will be one or two blank spots where different words can be added and removed.

Purpose and learning goals

Students will recognize the power of language in reflecting individual and societal values. As a society rife with the printed word, students will become aware of how language is widely used to articulate and promote specific values. Students will begin to recognize the subtly of language and how changing one or two words in a statement can change its meaning.

Prerequisite knowledge

Students should have a working definition of values and ethics, and how they are applied to a myriad of issues. In addition, students should understand that values are very much dependent upon an individual's or group's agenda.

Intended grade level

8 - 12

Time involved

One 45-minute period (extend as needed)

Alignment to standards (for entire unit)

Boulder Valley School District standard 5: Students know and evaluate interrelationships among science, technology, and human activity and how they can affect the world.

Background information for the unit

For students who need vocabulary reinforcement, this activity can help by using words in context. For those ready to learn more advanced vocabulary, this is an opportunity to introduce complex words often used to promote a set of values.

Materials

Six to seven “sentence stations” set up around the classroom. Each station should have a sentence as well as twenty vocabulary words that may be substituted into the blank areas of the sentence.
Student worksheet on which students will write the sentences they create.
As each new sentence is created, students will reflect on its new meaning and how the values promoted in the sentence have changed. In essence, students will be comparing and contrasting their sentences in terms of the meaning of the values that the sentence speaks to.

Preparation

Approximately 45 to 60 minutes to develop the sentence skeletons and the words that students will add.

Procedure

Students should work independently unless otherwise specified.
The teacher will model the activity on an overhead and lead a brief discussion on how the values emphasized in a statement can change when word substitutions are made.
Students should rotate around the “sentence stations.” They should write the new sentences that they create and explain how the values in the sentence change.
For homework, have the students create their own sentences and a list of words to add and delete. (You can use them in future classes).

Extensions and applications

This activity lends itself well to integrated lessons involving science and language arts. It instills a sense of linguistic creativity and serves as an opportunity to use new words.

This lesson also works well for ELL (English Language Learners) students who are improving their English skills and learning new vocabulary.

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