I Have a (Word) Dream II

Well, what would be the shape of the "spelling weekend" or retreat on which I would take about 25 eager young people? I think I would charge them each $100 for the weekend for my services, and the retreat center could charge them their fee for room and board. We would commence Friday evening after dinner and have a "fun" and rather light evening with words. They have just come from a zillion different directions, and so we would just have one 7:30-9:00 session where I would introduce about 100 words. Then, Saturday would be our "work" day, as we would have two morning and one afternoon sessions, ending at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday morning would conclude our time, with another three hours of intensive stuff. I suppose this is sort of modeled on a "church retreat" weekend, without the worship on Sunday and the talent show on Saturday night. Ah, that's it. The Saturday night event would be a spelling bee, where others might be invited, which would specifically be geared to the new words/roots I was teaching them. Since I have accepted the point that things only work for me when others initiate (i.e., invite me to do things), I will wait on this idea until someone invites me to do it.

Friday Night

The goal of the Friday evening session is to introduce 100 words. These words would be taken from things that immediately stimulate the senses. That is, I think I would focus on animals and food. Many animals and many food dishes are quite difficult to spell, even though if you "see" them or "taste" them, you will easily remember them the next time. For example, I think I might make a list of some of the following from the world of primates: colobus, patas, mandrill, langur, talapoin, surilis, douc, uakari, toque, macaque, siamang, rambutan, vervet, grivet, titi, bonobo, indri, avahi, sifaka, potto, angwantibo, galagos, saki, agouti, cerambycid, cathemeral, crepuscular, epiphytic, bromeliad, guenon, muriqui, capuchin, ungurahui, coatimundi, varzea, sclerocarpic, liana, igapo, caatinga, uaraba, hyoid, sternal, salados, tayra, pina, volar, bilophodont, loph, kapok, duikers, ischial callosities, zalambdodont and many others. I would not simply give them a list, but I would show pictures of some of these little guys or the things that they eat.

I would, for example, show what the hyoid bone is by giving them a detailed chart of facial bones and features. I would not only tell them that some of the primates eat cerambycid beetles, but I would give a picture of these beetles. Indeed, some of these words might be obscure, and some of them might never occur in a spelling bee, but they all open the mind to deeper understanding. As a matter of fact, when I began to take them through the Internet (they would all have laptops, of course, and the place would have to be "wired"), they would want to stop me and say, "Bill, let's take a moment to understand not just the hyoid bone but the entire structure of the face." In fact, they will find that I would only get through a few of the words because they would be so fascinated with discovering their own worlds that they would simply put my sheet down and go for it. And, I would be utterly delighted if they did this. I would have provided the spark to kindle their fire.

If that doesn't do it for them, certainly a list of foods would. Young people are always hungry, and talking about persillade potatoes or pidan or rijsttafel or bouillabaisse or pansit or lots of other words would stimulate not simply their gustatory but also their intellectual desires. I would put them on Hormel's web page, where they have hundreds and hundreds of recipes and names for various food dishes, and encourage them to make up their own lists. By the time 9:00 p.m. on Friday night rolled around, they would be so jazzed that they wouldn't want to stop. But I would have to encourage them to husband their eagerness, and would send them back to their rooms for an hour of quiet study or conversation with others.

Saturday

If Friday is the "come on" or "stimulation" day, Saturday is the work day. I would begin by explaining that no matter how pretty they are (and they all think they are pretty) or smart they are (and they all know they are smart), or however good their spelling instincts are (and some will have good spelling instincts), they really need to study if they are going to be good spellers. They simply have to know the words or, at least, the roots of all the words. Thus, the morning sessions of three hours would be completely taken up with classical language roots. But I wouldn't just go through the list of roots and say, "Here you are." I might prepare such a list, but I would always illustrate it in fun ways. For example, two such ways to do this would be to compile a list of 100 "fears" and 100 "ologies." I have already pretty much done the former, and the latter wouldn't be hard to do. I would do so in order to "ease" them into the importance of the classical roots for understanding the structure of English. We could then go in a dozen different directions as they tried to build other words based on those roots. Or, we could study various "shapes"--words that usually end in "form," and realize the variety of words we have for that in English.

The afternoon would be taken up with other language roots, especially French, and then take them through Yiddish words in English, German words that have come into our language and, increasingly, the Japanese words that come in. We might also do some things with Spanish or Italian roots. But the point would be that Saturday is a "root" day. But the end of the day they would think they would have had several "root" canals dug deep in their minds. It would be great.

That evening would be a spelling bee. I would devise the list so that it would build off the words we had learned. Some of them might be on the 300 words that I had already given them--just to see how they were "focusing," but a lot of the words would be derived from the fears or ologies. Thus, if I had introduced them to acarology, the study of mites and ticks, I might give the word acarologist in the bee. Or, more challenging, if they knew that a culicidologist was one who studied gnats, I might ask them to spell culicicide, which is what you generally want to do to gnats (i.e., kill them). We would look at this bee as a learning experience, as a way to deepen and enrich their language and root knowledge that they have been developing throughout the day.

Sunday

Sunday would consist of two things: an introduction to the Linnaean classification system and a valedictory hour on "50 words that, if you know them, others will think you are a genius." I think we need to understand the Linnaean system for two reasons. First, it gives a "framework" for understanding where everything "fits" in a system. And, second, it will lead us far beyond our abilites to spell. Thus, it will tell us how far we all need to go in order to be really good spellers. Then, the day would end with the "genius words." I will only list a few of them here, because I don't want to give you all my "goods." They would be words such as psittacine or psittacosis; phtisis or phthisic; various words beginning with "ct" such as ctenophore or ctetology; words such as psephology or cnemial; various words for foreign coins such as ngwee, kwacha or ringgit; various words beginning with "x" such as xebec, xerophagous, or xeriscape. Then, I would have several "tricky" words like those beginning with "quad"--such as when you know it is "quadra" (quadrant) or "quadri" (quadrilateral) or "quadru" (quadruped), or words like heleoplankton, demegoric, andragogy, nephalism, nephoscope. I would conclude with several words that are named after people--often the most difficult to spell unless you "know" the people, such as shillibeer, coulomb, grimthorpe, paulownia, sarrusophone (to be distinguished from a sousaphone).

By the end of the weekend, everyone would spell much better and, in fact, have been intellectually stimulated to the hilt.

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