Overview

Lesson Procedure

65-75 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15-20 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "A college syllabus for Introduction to Economics lists four terms for the first week: scarcity, marginal, efficiency, incentive. Which of them do you already use in everyday speech? Write your everyday meaning of marginal, then predict what an economist means by it."

   Collect predictions. In everyday speech, marginal means minor or barely enough (a marginal improvement). In economics, it means one more unit: the marginal cost of the 101st T-shirt is the extra cost of making that one shirt. Point out what happened: a word students already knew turned out to be a technical term with an exact meaning they could not have guessed. College reading is full of such words, and no one hands out a list. This lesson is about acquiring and using them accurately and about gathering knowledge of them independently.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Part 1: Acquire vocabulary at the college and career readiness level. A college text in a new field may introduce a dozen terms in a chapter, and a job may bring its own (a machinist's tolerance, a nurse's triage, a paralegal's discovery). Learn each term as a unit of meaning: its definition in the field, what it contrasts with (elastic with inelastic, argue with concede), its usual partners (strike down a law, refer a bill), and an example you could explain aloud. Watch for ordinary words that a field has sharpened: Diagram 2 shows five precise meanings of resolution.

   Part 2: Use terms accurately in writing and speech. Four checks apply at this level. Field meaning: a term keeps the meaning its discipline gives it. Claim strength: in research writing, verbs and nouns carry exact strengths; statistics, for example, separates words for a relationship (correlated, associated) from words for a cause. Audience: in a talk or an essay for general readers, introduce only the terms the argument needs, define each at first use, and then use it consistently. Register: a term that is precise in a seminar may need a plain-language gloss for a younger or outside audience, without losing accuracy.

   Part 3: Gather vocabulary knowledge independently. Independence at grades 11 and 12 means choosing and judging sources, not only using a dictionary. Start with the text and the course glossary, then go to a field reference such as a professional glossary or an official source; use a general dictionary for usage notes, and a historical dictionary when the text is old (Diagram 1). When sources disagree, record both, prefer the field's own authority, and state which definition you use. Keep a running glossary for each course.

   • A technical term that everyday words cannot replace

     When a store raises the price of a brand of cereal by 10 percent, the number of boxes it sells falls by 25 percent. A student writes, People really care about the price of this cereal.

     Result: Economics has an exact term for this. The price elasticity of demand is the percent change in quantity demanded divided by the percent change in price: -25 ÷ 10 = -2.5. Because its size, 2.5, is greater than 1, demand is elastic: buyers respond strongly to price, often because substitutes exist. Accurate revision: Demand for this cereal is elastic (an elasticity of -2.5), probably because shoppers can switch to similar brands. For a medicine with no substitute, demand is usually inelastic.

   • A domain-specific phrase in government

     A student writes: The Senate used judicial review to reject the treaty.

     Result: Judicial review is the power of courts to decide whether a law or a government action is constitutional and to refuse to enforce it if it is not. The Supreme Court first used that power to strike down part of a federal law in Marbury v. Madison (1803), in an opinion by Chief Justice John Marshall. The Senate does not exercise judicial review; it gives or withholds its consent to a treaty, which needs a two-thirds vote. Accurate: The Senate refused its consent to the treaty.

   • A general academic verb used precisely

     In an essay on a city council debate, a student writes: The mayor concedes that bike lanes will reduce traffic deaths.

     Result: To concede is to admit a point that weakens one's own position or supports the other side. Reducing traffic deaths is the mayor's own argument for bike lanes, so the accurate verb is argues, contends or maintains. The mayor would concede a cost: The mayor argues that bike lanes will reduce traffic deaths; she concedes that they will remove some parking spaces. Reporting verbs such as asserts, acknowledges, rebuts and concedes each tell the reader something different about a writer's stance.

   • A career term with an exact meaning

     A machinist's drawing gives a shaft diameter of 25.00 mm ± 0.05 mm. A trainee writes in the shop log: The shaft has a high tolerance, so it is strong.

     Result: In manufacturing, tolerance is the permitted amount of variation in a measurement, not strength. Here any shaft from 25.00 - 0.05 = 24.95 mm to 25.00 + 0.05 = 25.05 mm passes, so a shaft that measures 25.07 mm is out of tolerance and is rejected. Accurate log entry: Shaft measured 25.07 mm, outside the tolerance of ±0.05 mm; rejected.

   • Gathering knowledge independently when sources differ

     A student researching a city's climate plan keeps meeting two phrases: net zero and carbon offset. No one has assigned them.

     Result: Flag: the plan's main goal is stated with net zero, so the paper depends on it. Consult a field reference: the glossary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body that assesses climate science, describes net zero carbon dioxide emissions as the condition in which carbon dioxide emissions caused by people are balanced by removals caused by people over a specified period. Compare: the city's plan also counts purchased carbon offsets, credits for reductions made elsewhere, which some sources accept and others criticize. Decide and cite: the student writes, In this paper, net zero follows the IPCC definition; the city's target also counts purchased offsets.

3. Guided Practice15-20 minutes

   John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American philosopher and a professor at Columbia University who wrote How We Think (1910) for teachers. In this chapter he explains how a person's vocabulary grows more precise. Read the excerpt aloud. Model the first row of the table: what Dewey says about the word, then what a current source adds. Pairs complete the other rows for paragraphs 1 and 2; the teacher key is in the right column. Paragraph 3 is for the quiz.

   1In the history of language we find both aspects of the growth of vocabulary illustrated by changes in the sense of words: some words originally wide in their application are narrowed to denote shades of meaning; others originally specific are widened to express relationships. The term vernacular, now meaning mother speech, has been generalized from the word verna, meaning a slave born in the master's household. Publication has evolved its meaning of communication by means of print, through restricting an earlier meaning of any kind of communication--although the wider meaning is retained in legal procedure, as publishing a libel. The sense of the word average has been generalized from a use connected with dividing loss by shipwreck proportionately among various sharers in an enterprise.

   [...]

   2These historical changes assist the educator to appreciate the changes that occur with individuals together with advance in intellectual resources. In studying geometry, a pupil must learn both to narrow and to extend the meanings of such familiar words as line, surface, angle, square, circle; to narrow them to the precise meanings involved in demonstrations; to extend them to cover generic relations not expressed in ordinary usage. Qualities of color and size must be excluded; relations of direction, of variation in direction, of limit, must be definitely seized. A like transformation occurs, of course, in every subject of study. Just at this point lies the danger, alluded to above, of simply overlaying common meanings with new and isolated meanings instead of effecting a genuine working-over of popular and practical meanings into adequate logical tools.

   [...]

   3Terms used with intentional exactness so as to express a meaning, the whole meaning, and only the meaning, are called technical. For educational purposes, a technical term indicates something relative, not absolute; for a term is technical not because of its verbal form or its unusualness, but because it is employed to fix a meaning precisely. Ordinary words get a technical quality when used intentionally for this end. Whenever thought becomes more accurate, a (relatively) technical vocabulary grows up. Teachers are apt to oscillate between extremes in regard to technical terms. On the one hand, these are multiplied in every direction, seemingly on the assumption that learning a new piece of terminology, accompanied by verbal description or definition, is equivalent to grasping a new idea. When it is seen how largely the net outcome is the accumulation of an isolated set of words, a jargon or scholastic cant, and to what extent the natural power of judgment is clogged by this accumulation, there is a reaction to the opposite extreme. Technical terms are banished: "name words" exist but not nouns; "action words" but not verbs; pupils may "take away," but not subtract; they may tell what four fives are, but not what four times five are, and so on. A sound instinct underlies this reaction--aversion to words that give the pretense, but not the reality, of meaning. Yet the fundamental difficulty is not with the word, but with the idea. If the idea is not grasped, nothing is gained by using a more familiar word; if the idea is perceived, the use of the term that exactly names it may assist in fixing the idea. Terms denoting highly exact meanings should be introduced only sparingly, that is, a few at a time; they should be led up to gradually, and great pains should be taken to secure the circumstances that render precision of meaning significant.

   Gathering knowledge about Dewey's examples (teacher key in the last column)

   Word (paragraph)	What Dewey says	What a current source adds (teacher key)
   vernacular (1)	Now means "mother speech"; generalized from Latin verna, a slave born in the master's household	Current dictionaries define it as the everyday language of the people of a place, as opposed to a formal or literary language. Latin vernaculus meant "native, domestic," from verna. The meaning widened from one kind of person to anything native.
   publication (1)	Narrowed to communication by print; the wider meaning survives "as publishing a libel"	In defamation law, publication still means communicating a statement to at least one person other than the one it is about; nothing has to be printed.
   average (1)	Generalized from dividing a shipwreck loss among the owners	The word first named a charge or loss in Mediterranean sea trade. When cargo was thrown overboard to save a ship, all the owners shared the loss in proportion; maritime law still calls this general average. The math sense grew out of that sharing.
   line, square (2)	Familiar words a geometry pupil must narrow and extend	In geometry, a line is straight, has no thickness and extends without end in both directions; a square is any figure with four equal sides and four right angles, whatever its color or size.
   generic relations (2)	Relations "not expressed in ordinary usage" that geometry words must be extended to cover	Generic here means true of a whole class, or genus: every square is a rectangle and a rhombus, a relation that everyday use of the word does not express.

   Discuss: Dewey says that the same narrowing and widening happens "in every subject of study." Ask each pair for a word from another course that they had to narrow or extend when they learned it, such as force in physics, culture in biology or state in government. What would a student lose by only "overlaying" the new meaning on the old one?

   Teacher note: Dewey's history of vernacular goes back to a Latin word for an enslaved person born in the household. Name this plainly if students ask; it is one reason word histories are worth checking and not assuming.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students work alone on the Wilson excerpt. Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) wrote Congressional Government as a young political scientist, decades before he became president in 1913. Each student flags the four terms most important to comprehension, chooses a source type for each from Diagram 1 (including one current official source on how the House works today), and writes a two-sentence summary of Wilson's claim that uses at least three of the terms accurately. Teacher key for terms students often flag: Standing Committee, a permanent committee with a fixed subject area (Wilson counts forty-seven in the House of his day; the House of the 119th Congress, 2025-2027, has 20); session, the period during which a legislature meets to do business; private member, a term borrowed from the British Parliament, where it means a member who is not a government minister, used here for a member acting in his own name rather than for his committee; call of States, a House procedure of the 1880s in which the states were called in order on Mondays so that members could introduce bills.

   1The fate of bills committed is generally not uncertain. As a rule, a bill committed is a bill doomed. When it goes from the clerk's desk to a committee-room it crosses a parliamentary bridge of sighs to dim dungeons of silence whence it will never return. The means and time of its death are unknown, but its friends never see it again. Of course no Standing Committee is privileged to take upon itself the full powers of the House it represents, and formally and decisively reject a bill referred to it; its disapproval, if it disapproves, must be reported to the House in the form of a recommendation that the bill "do not pass." But it is easy, and therefore common, to let the session pass without making any report at all upon bills deemed objectionable or unimportant, and to substitute for reports upon them a few bills of the Committee's own drafting; so that thousands of bills expire with the expiration of each Congress, not having been rejected, but having been simply neglected. There was not time to report upon them.

   2Of course it goes without saying that the practical effect of this Committee organization of the House is to consign to each of the Standing Committees the entire direction of legislation upon those subjects which properly come to its consideration. As to those subjects it is entitled to the initiative, and all legislative action with regard to them is under its overruling guidance. It gives shape and course to the determinations of the House. In one respect, however, its initiative is limited. Even a Standing Committee cannot report a bill whose subject-matter has not been referred to it by the House, "by the rules or otherwise;" it cannot volunteer advice on questions upon which its advice has not been asked. But this is not a serious, not even an operative, limitation upon its functions of suggestion and leadership; for it is a very simple matter to get referred to it any subject it wishes to introduce to the attention of the House. Its chairman, or one of its leading members, frames a bill covering the point upon which the Committee wishes to suggest legislation; brings it in, in his capacity as a private member, on Monday, when the call of States is made; has it referred to his Committee; and thus secures an opportunity for the making of the desired report.

5. Closure10 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Name one term from today that you would now define differently from your first guess, and give the source that changed your mind. (2) Write one sentence for a general listener that introduces a technical term from one of your courses and defines it at first use.

   Teacher note on the texts: Both excerpts are quoted exactly. Wilson describes the House of 1883-1884, and in his 1900 preface he warns that the system had already changed. The House of the 119th Congress (2025-2027) has 20 standing committees, bills are introduced by placing them in a box called the hopper rather than on a call of States, and a discharge petition signed by a majority of members, 218, can force a bill out of a committee that will not report it. Wilson, like other writers of his time, uses he for every member, since all members of Congress were men in 1885. His later presidency is remembered both for his wartime leadership and for policies that segregated federal offices; this lesson uses only his early political science. The research summary draft and its data are invented for this page.

   For the quiz: Questions 1-5 use paragraph 3 of the Dewey excerpt in Guided Practice, Questions 6-10 use the Wilson excerpt in Independent Practice, and Questions 11-16 use the research summary draft below. In the draft, paragraph 1 is the title line.

   1Research Summary, Draft: Sleep and Test Scores

   2For our statistics project, we studied whether sleep is related to test performance. Forty juniors at our school volunteered, so we had a random sample. Each student recorded his or her hours of sleep on the night before a unit test, and we collected the test scores.

   3We grouped the students by hours of sleep. Students who slept less than 6 hours had a mean score of 74; 6 to 7 hours, 78; 7 to 8 hours, 81; and more than 8 hours, 84. The correlation between hours of sleep and test score was r = 0.41, which was statistically significant at the 0.05 level.

   4Scores increased exponentially as sleep increased. Our study proves that sleeping more causes higher test scores, and because the correlation was statistically significant, the effect of sleep is huge. These results infer that every high school should start later.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to paragraph 3 of the Dewey excerpt, what makes a term technical?

   Aan unusual form, such as a Latin or a Greek root Bbeing used on purpose to fix a meaning precisely Cbeing listed in the glossary of a school textbook Dbeing unfamiliar to most people who are not experts

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Dewey warns against "the accumulation of an isolated set of words, a jargon or scholastic cant." What does jargon mean in this sentence?

   Athe working vocabulary that every field of study needs Bthe informal slang of young people outside school Cterms piled up without the ideas they stand for Da foreign language that is taught in the schools

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Dewey reports that some teachers let pupils "take away" but not "subtract." What is his own view of this practice?

   AFamiliar words always teach an idea better than technical terms do. BTechnical terms should be kept out of schools until students reach college. CTeachers should introduce as many technical terms as possible. DThe difficulty is the idea; once it is grasped, the exact term helps fix it.

4. Question 4 of 20 · Short Answer

   Dewey says that terms with highly exact meanings "should be introduced only sparingly" and "led up to gradually." Using an example from one of your own courses, explain what this advice means for a student who is learning a field's vocabulary independently.

   Show model answer

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Dewey writes that "Teachers are apt to oscillate between extremes in regard to technical terms." What does oscillate mean here?

   Ato swing back and forth between two opposite positions Bto settle on a sensible middle point between two positions Cto refuse to consider either of two opposite positions Dto move steadily away from one position toward another

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 1 of the Wilson excerpt, "As a rule, a bill committed is a bill doomed." What does committed mean?

   Apromised passage by the members who support it Breferred to a committee for its consideration Ccarried out, in the way that a crime is carried out Dsigned into law by the president of the United States

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Paragraph 1 says a committee's disapproval "must be reported to the House in the form of a recommendation that the bill 'do not pass.'" What is a report in this legislative sense?

   Aa committee's formal statement to the House, with its advice on a bill Ba newspaper account of what happened in the House on a given day Ca complaint filed against a member for breaking the rules of the House Dan official count of the votes that members cast on a bill in the House

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In paragraph 2, Wilson says that on its subjects a Standing Committee "is entitled to the initiative." Which meaning of initiative fits?

   Aa proposal that citizens place on a state ballot for a vote Ba new government program started to solve a problem Cthe right to act first, here by proposing legislation Da person's eagerness to act without being told to

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Paragraph 1 says that "thousands of bills expire with the expiration of each Congress." What does a Congress mean in this sentence?

   Aa single day on which the House meets, debates and votes Bthe Capitol building in which the House and Senate meet Cone yearly session of the House and the Senate Dthe two-year period between elections for the House

10. Question 10 of 20 · Short Answer

    Wilson wrote his account in 1883 and 1884. Before using it in a research paper about how Congress works today, name two things in the excerpt you would check, and explain which source you would use for each and why.

    Show model answer

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Paragraph 4 of the research summary draft says, "Our study proves that sleeping more causes higher test scores." Which revision is accurate?

    AIn our study, more sleep was associated with higher test scores. BOur study proves that more sleep is associated with higher test scores. COur study shows that higher test scores cause students to sleep longer. DOur study shows that sleep has no connection at all to test scores.

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Paragraph 2 says, "Forty juniors at our school volunteered, so we had a random sample." Which revision uses the statistics terms accurately?

    ABecause there were forty students, the sample was large enough to count as random. BBecause all forty students were juniors, the sample was random within our school. CBecause every junior in the school took part, the sample was a census of the school. DThe students chose to take part, so this was a volunteer sample, not a random one.

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    The draft says, "because the correlation was statistically significant, the effect of sleep is huge." The correlation was r = 0.41. Which revision is accurate?

    AThe correlation was statistically significant, so sleep explains 41 percent of the variation in scores. BThe correlation was statistically significant, so the result is certain to be repeated in any study. CThe correlation was statistically significant; sleep accounted for about 17 percent of score variation. DThe correlation was statistically significant, so the effect is large and important for every student.

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Paragraph 4 says, "Scores increased exponentially as sleep increased." Using the mean scores in paragraph 3 (74, 78, 81 and 84), which revision is accurate?

    AMean scores doubled from the least-sleep group to the most-sleep group. BMean scores rose by 3 to 4 points from each sleep group to the next. CMean scores rose by the same percentage from each group to the next. DMean scores fell slightly as the students' hours of sleep increased.

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Paragraph 4 ends, "These results infer that every high school should start later." Which revision is accurate?

    AThese results imply that every high school in the country ought to start later. BFrom these results, we infer that sleep and scores are related among these juniors. CThese results infer that sleep and scores are related among the juniors in our study. DWe imply from these results that every high school in the country should start later.

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Write two sentences for a new "Limitations" paragraph of the research summary. Use the terms confounding variable and generalize accurately.

    Show model answer

17. Question 17 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which sentence uses empirical accurately?

    AThe study's empirical evidence came from measurements of 300 water samples. BHer argument is empirical because it rests on strong feelings about fairness. CThe empirical ruler of Rome governed lands from Britain to Egypt. DHis empirical theory has never been tested against any observations.

18. Question 18 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student reading the Wilson excerpt wants to know what the phrase the call of States meant in the House of the 1880s. Which source would give the most reliable answer?

    Aa current general dictionary's entry for the word call Ba thesaurus entry that lists synonyms for the word call Ca history of House procedure in the 1880s Da classmate's guess based on the rest of Wilson's sentence

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Choose a technical term from a career field you are interested in, such as nursing, engineering, law or finance. Write a two-sentence explanation of it for a listener outside the field, keep it accurate, and name the kind of source you used to check it.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Explain the term appropriation, as Congress uses it, twice: once in one sentence for a college political science seminar, and once in one sentence for a middle school student. Both sentences must be accurate.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to L.11-12.6: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.