Vocabulary Building: Establishing Connections Between a Given Word & the Story in a Book

Vocabulary building doesn't always have to be about finding the meaning and making a sentence to remember it!

At the Young Readers' Club, we love words. We often play a variety of word games just to find new words or simply to talk about the meaning of words that we already know. Recently, we stumbled upon this picture and tried to figure the word that best describes the emotion.

The group debated between 'strong' and 'resilient'. They eventually settled for 'resilient'. But that was only after discussing in detail the difference between the two words.

Finding the resilient character across books that we have read

The discussion soon took an interesting turn.

"Would you call Mack from One and Only Ivan resilient?"

"He did what he could and knew when to accept that the end was close."

"He tried hard enough and did not give up easily."

"What about Aunt Stella from the same book? She seems like the perfect example of being resilient. She has been through so much but she survived in all the odds. She did not break. She lived fully accepting the conditions."

"Mack did all that he could do. He is a survivor but resilient? I have trouble accepting that."

"Ivan was resilient in his own way too. He had lost his family but still figured out a way to be happy."

"Yes but, he did so by burying his memories somewhere behind in his mind where he could not access them easily. But Aunt Stella on the other hand remembered everything about her past and yet she remained strong and unperturbed no matter what."

"We could say that about Ruby and Bob too. Ruby being a baby elephant has been through a lot for her age. As for Bob he is someone who learnt to live life on the streets and in the process has become extremely independent."

"Ruby, I would say is on her to becoming resilient. She is still young and learning."

"What about Donavan Curtis from Ungifted?"

"He is not resilient. He is simply someone who is constantly trying to escape from the mess that he always gets himself into. Noah Youkilis on the other hand, is resilient." "What makes you say so?"

"Noah was in a place that he did not like much. He wanted to be normal like the others and not super gifted. Having found a way out, he is learning to survive the new place he is in, in Super gifted.

"How about Brad? He might be one of the characters on the side but being in the army makes him a resilient character in both Ungifted as well as Super gifted.

Needless to say, by the end of our session together, 'resilient' as a word was bound to become deeply ingrained in our minds. Discussing them in the context of the books, enabled us as readers to draw inspiration from all the amazing characters we have met in these books. Rest assured, the next time we find ourselves in a difficult situation, we will remind ourselves of these resilient characters!

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The Young Readers' Club is a book club for the 8-12 age group. We also do vocabulary building activities and mini writing lessons for a little variety!

Writing programs for the 9-12 age group- Young Writers' Club Jr.  

The Young Writers' Club program for the 13-16 age group offers a weekly platform to read and discuss curated articles from the news, observe writing approaches and practise one's writing skills.

Tween Tribune  is an online magazine for the Young Writers' Club (Jr.) program for tweens. Weekly updates of our discussions are published. Once in 6 months, the best of writing by the tween members is made available to read.

Musings from the Young Writers' Club is an online magazine showcasing the work we do at the Young Writers' Club.