Do you remember when you were a kid and people told you “sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you”? They were SOOOOOOO wrong. Words matter. That’s why I am here today talking about the impact that focusing on just ONE word and The One Word Project.
The Story of the One Word, Happiness
In the spring of 2020, my students, both English 11 and AP Literature needed something positive to focus their attention. It was May. We had been in lock down since March and it was beginning to take a toll on everyone. You all lived it too, so you know what I am talking about. My co-teacher, Amber from Success through Literacy, and I came up with “the happiness project.” Students focused their attention on the word happiness and what makes them happy. The AP kids wrote definition essays and developed videos to present happiness in their lives. The English 11 kids did a scaled down variation.
Their projects blew my mind. Each project was a beautiful reflection of each individual student. They presented them to me and in some cases other people they invited which ranged from our principal to family and friends.
So that is just one way that you can use ONE WORD in the classroom, but what about other ways that you can use just one word to really have an impact in your classroom community?
The One Word Project
What is The One Word Project? The idea behind The One Word Project is that instead of making a New Year’s Resolution, you select a word and that becomes your mantra for the year. It’s a great way to think differently about new starts which can come in January or if you are a teacher or student, in September. Really, it can come at any time that you are looking for a new start.
When my first Happiness Project was over I knew that not only did this project need to be repeated. It needs to be expanded. So for the 2020-2021 school year, I let my students pick their own words in September. They selected their words, made them visible and reflected on the denotations, connotations, synonyms and antonyms. But it didn’t end there. Each month I gave them a writing prompt to keep them connected to the word. In January, they were able to reevaluate their word and decide if it still fit them. Then we followed through at the end of the year with a similar project to our Happiness project of 2020–a definition essay and a video. And those videos…. There are no words, which is kind of ironic. (You can find this project here.)
Other Ways to Use One Word in the Classroom
One Word SEL checks
All throughout the year, Amber Walther of Success Through Literacy and I used our bell-ringers/warm-ups in English 11 for social emotional learning check-ins. We had many students who were fully remote and we were concerned about their well being. We used a variety of prompts, but one of my favorites was “Give us one word to tell us how you are doing and explain why.” It really gave us an opportunity to check in with our students in a way that was quick and intentional. (A free template here.)
One Word Seminars
At some point during the year, I wondered what would happen if students used a one word prompt to look at the literature we were reading. So I made some Jamboard slides for Hamlet. I asked students to write one word to describe X, then we used that as the basis of a full class discussion. These discussions were SOOOOOO GOOD. It was a different take on the text. Students debated the word choices (because of course there were different opinions) and it gave voice to students who don’t love speaking out loud. (Get Hamlet One Word Discussion Starters here.)
Thinking about Your Classroom
How might you be able to harness the power of One Word in your classroom? Will it be a yearlong project? SEL? Seminars? Do you have other ideas? Leave them in the comments below.
An Easy Way to the One Word Project
If you love the idea of the Power of One Word but don’t have time to put the work in, check out The One Word Project for High School, a yearlong project, The One Word Seminar for Hamlet: Hamlet Discussion Starters, and don’t forget to grab your free SEL Warm Up.
Just be sure to take some time to harness the power of one word.
Related Resources
9 New Years Activities for High School English: even more ideas for the new school year or the new calendar year.
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The One Word Project: a year long project for high school English
4 Responses
Wow!
Cool project.
I always took the “Sticks and stones…” as a defiant taunt that temporarily put the power back into the bullied child’s corner.
Interesting. I never thought about it that way, but that totally makes sense.