Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 3- Looking into Language (Rising 4th/5th)

Posted by morganr1 on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 in SAVY.

Wordful Wednesday began with a recap of the International Phonetic Alphabet, where we continued honing our linguistic skills. Students created flash cards for each phonetic symbol and gave the class lessons on how to properly pronounce the sounds through multiple examples. Next, we broke down the poetry of Shel Silverstein. We counted syllables to study the meter, checked for rhyming words, and then transcribed full poems into IPA in order to see similar sounds. Poems included “Pancake?”, “Snowball”, “Hug O’War”, and “It’s Dark in Here”. The task was daunting, but our SAVY linguists were up to the task and are looking forward to showing off the results!

Our afternoon was spent breaking words down into morphemes, or the smallest meaningful unit in language. For example, the word “beautiful” contains two morphemes: beauti-ful. Even through there are three syllables, the word cannot be reduced any further and still contain meaning. We reviewed prefixes and suffixes and then created supermegaultrahyperlong words that were both logical in nature and as stacked as possible. We discussed how authors invent words for their stories and how new words are created all the time. Erin McKean’s short TED talk “Go Ahead and Make Up New Words” inspired us to create our own words, which are on display throughout the classroom. Our linguists ended the day by creating dictionary entries for their words, complete with the IPA transcription, a definition, and a working sentence containing the word. We’re giving Merriam-Webster a run for their money!

Ms. Abby Broughton