INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL AND TEST BANK to accompany Academic Vocabulary Academic Words Fourth Edition Amy E. Olsen Cuesta College

Collaborative Activities
Activities Using the Interactive Exercises
Collaborative learning gets students talking and leads to congenial classroom experiences that
motivate students to attend class. Group projects also help students to meet others they may want to
form study groups with, which frequently result in life-long friendships. There are many ways to
use the Interactive Exercises for collaborative activities. Suggested activities and chapters for which
they may best be suited follow.
Pairs
Students work in pairs to create or share the Interactive Exercise. Students may work better
together on some of the more creative topics, such as writing a poem for Chapter 20. The students
can also share their individual responses with another person orally or through further writing
activities. Writing works especially well with the Interactive Exercises that ask for longer responses
(Chapters 2, 8, 10, 20, 25, and 26). For example, in Chapter 8, after reading the partner’s program
notes, the student can write a letter explaining why he or she would or would not want to attend
this show. For Chapter 25, the student can write a note agreeing or disagreeing with the opinions
expressed in the partner’s critique of the painting. The additional writing projects should also use
the chapter’s vocabulary words. Favorite correspondences can be shared with the whole class.
Pairs can also continue to share opinions related to an Interactive Exercise by using the vocabulary
words in a conversation.
Small Groups
Small-group exercises give students a chance to use the words conversationally. Most of the
Interactive Exercises work well in groups of four to six. Students can complete the Interactive
Exercise in a small group, such as being an advertising-campaign team put together to write the
sales pitch for Chapter 26. Small groups can share their answers orally with each other and then
pick favorite responses to share with the class. To enhance critical thinking skills, the members of
each group can be asked to explain why they made their selections to share with the class. For
example, for Chapter 10, students can explain what made the person’s journal entry the most
interesting, or for Chapter 14, question 1, why they thought the chosen anecdote was the best.
Whole Class
Some of the Interactive Exercises can be done with the whole class participating. For example, for
Chapter 7, students can raise their hands (or call out) to give examples for each question. A long
list can be created on the board, or a set number (such as six) need to be given before moving on to
the next question. The Interactive Exercises done individually can be shared by having students
write one or two of their responses to a listing exercise (Chapters 7, 9, 13, 16, 19, 22, and 24) on
the board. When several responses are recorded, similar and different answers can be discussed.
This activity also works well for the question format exercises (Chapters 1, 3, 4, 14, 15, 21, and
27). Students can answer aloud or be given a question to write a response to on the board.
Discussion can follow as a variety of answers are expressed