Wordsmithing

A wordsmith is a person who makes and experiments with new words. I tried a wordsmithing activity with my Honors Geometry class when introducing the unit on quadrilaterals. The students used a three column matrix and searched the text for new geometric terms, which they recorded in the first column of the matrix. Then, they guessed what each term meant and wrote their guess in the second column. Next, they looked in the text for the definition of the term and wrote it in the last column. Finally they chose at least one of the new terms and rewrote it in an interesting or unusual fashion, which revealed the underlying meaning of the word. For example, one student wrote the word parallelogram as pairs-o-parallel. The students seemed to enjoy the activity because it allowed them to learn what they didn't already know about the terms, while allowing them to be creative at the same time.