Number 1 Trick to Improving a Student's Writing

What is a Thesaurus?

• Expand vocabulary - Using a thesaurus helps students increase their usable word choices.
• Avoid repetition - Consulting a thesaurus guides students to alternate word choices when they are concerned with the overuse of a single word within their composition.
• Improve writing quality and sophistication - Utilizing a thesaurus assists students in selecting more appropriate or mature wording.
• Select descriptive words - Consulting a thesaurus helps students find more descriptive words that will enable their audience to better visualize their content.
• Impress your readers - Utilizing a thesaurus assists students in finding words that can impress their audience.
• Nurture a mindful approach - Using a thesaurus feeds an active, thoughtful and analytical approach to writing.
• Find words that are difficult to spell - Consulting a thesaurus assists in finding challenging words to spell when you enter a common synonym to the desired word.
• Make the writing process fun - Employing the use of a thesaurus is enjoyable. I have always enjoyed using a thesaurus and find that it has nurtured a personal love for words.

• Provide a passage with a lot of word repetitions. Ask your students to change the repeated words in the passage by using a thesaurus. Once the students have rewritten the passage, ask the students to read it aloud and discuss the benefits of using a thesaurus.
• Highlight boring, simple words in a passage that are difficult to visualize. With the use of a thesaurus, ask students to rewrite the passage with synonyms that conjure more visuals in the reader's mind's eye.
• Give your students a list of simple words and ask them to find other words in a thesaurus that are more descriptive.
• Ask students to find words in a thesaurus, such as the word"Kind," and ask them to make a list of all the words that they didn't know that have the same or a similar meaning. They might come up with words such as philanthropic, benevolent, or one that I just learned by looking at the thesaurus - eleemosynary.
• Discuss how mindlessly selecting synonyms can get a writer in trouble because many words have multiple meanings. Then provide a game where your students have to take a mixed-up list of words. Ask them to place these words in order based on similar meaning. For example, Sad = Down = Under = Lesser = Minor = Young = New. Once the students are finished with the activity, ask them to create their own.