VOCABULARY
I have never been a fan of the role vocabulary sometimes plays in an English class.  Most often students are assigned words to learn each week with a quiz at the end of the week to test their knowledge.  Once that week is complete, the class moves on to a new set of words only to leave the previous week's words to be erased from student's minds. 
My approach to vocabulary promotes long-term retention of the words, their meanings, and their proper usages.  My strategies are based on the work of Lee Jenkins and his
studies on how to eliminate giving students "permission to forget." Here's how it works...

SEMESTER GOAL
By the end of each semester, students will be responsible
for learning 80 vocabulary words provided by me.  In order to
achieve this goal, students will partake in the following activites:

RANDOM QUIZZES
At the start of each week, students will be given five randomly selected words from the eighty-word list. Without any assistance aside from prior knowledge, students must identify the words. At first, students may not be able to identify many words, but as the semester progresses, and they learn the words as described below, students will be able to identify more. These quizzes are not graded (first semester), but will require students to maintain knowledge of the words.

BONUS ROUND
(available only semester two) All students may attempt the bonus round of identifying an additional five words from the semester one vocabulary list during the random quizzes. Credit cannot be lost, but only gained if they successfully identify any or all of the bonus words.

WEEKLY WORDS
Every week we will select five of the eighty vocabulary words to be studied. In class we will review the words, their definitions, examples, synonyms and antonyms. Students will compile all definitions on their monthly vocabulary sheets.

VOCAB QUIZZES
At the end of every two weeks students will be quizzed on the total ten words from the past two weeks.  Quizzes will be handwritten, using proper penmanship, and will consist of defining each word and writing a complete sentence for each that exemplifies understanding of the words.

PRE / MID / FINAL
The goal is to have students learn and commit to memory eighty words.  During the first week of the semester students will be given all eighty words and be given time to attempt to identify as many as possible.  The same words will be given to them at mid-term, and again at the end of the semester.  Progress will be charted.  Scoring for these tests reflects how many of the words a student should know by the time of the test.

WHICH WORDS? 
I always try to come up with the best set of vocabulary words for students.  Some
teachers use the words found in our text books, and others use the SATs and/or AIMS to generate lists.  These are well and good approaches, but I found a source that offers words that are more useful than simply knowing in order to pass a standardized test.  They are words that apply to all subject areas of high school and beyond. The words come courtesy of the aptly titled books: 100 Words Every High School Freshmen Should Know & 100 Words To Make You Sound Great.

Here are the words:

1. accentuate
2. alliteration
3. analogy
4. aspire
5. boisterous
6. boycott
7. chronology
8. commemorate
9. cower
10. decorum
11. deduction
12. deign
13. despondent
14. dialogue
15. divulge
16. eclectic
17. ellipse
18. embargo
19. exult
20. fallacy
21. flourish
22. formidable
23. guerrilla
24. guru
25. heritage
26. hologram
27. hypocrisy
28. immune
29. impertinent
30. inference 
31. introspection
32. jaunty
33. jovial
34. kilometer
35. labyrinth
36. laconic
37. lichen
38. light-year
39. maneuver
40. metaphor
41. mosaic
42. mutation
43. nebula
44. nuisance
45. omnivore
46. parasite
47. plateau
48. protagonist
49. pulverize 
50. quandary
51. quarantine
52. quota
53. recede
54. renaissance
55. renegade
56. repose
57. sacrifice
58. silhouette
59. solstice
60. spectrum
61. stereotype
62. strategy
63. suffrage
64. symbiosis
65. tariff
66. technique
67. tempo
68. toxin
69. tranquility
70. tumult
71. tundra
72. unanimous
73. undulate
74. vaccine
75. vacillate
76. vertebrate
77. virtuoso
78. voracious
79. wretched
80. yacht

 
1. adamant 
2. affinity
3. allay
4. amenable
5. amoral
6. assuage
7. bauble
8. beguile
9. beset
10. bulwark
11. complacent
12. consign
13. contend
14. cosmopolitan
15. culpable
16. depravity
17. derelict
18. dissimulate
19. dissipate
20. dogmatic
21. elicit 
22. epithet
23. espouse
24. expediency
25. forestall
26. furtive
27. galling
28. gratuitous
29. hallmark
30. ignominious
31. imperturbable
32. ingratiate
33. innocuous
34. intemperate
35. interpolate
36. inure
37. juggernaut
38. latent
39. legacy
40. ludicrous
41. mandate
42. maven
43. mawkish
44. modus operandi
45. nefarious
46. nicety
47. nonchalance
48. orthodoxy
49. patina
50. pernicious
51. perpetuate
52. pittance
53. pompous
54. precipitate
55. prescience
56. profusion
57. propensity
58. pugnacity
59. pusillanimous
60. quip
61. reconciliation
62. resiliency
63. respite
64. riposte
65. spurious
66. squander 
67. supersede
68. surreptitious
69. tenacity
70. tenuous
71. travail 
72. unbridled
73. uncanny
74. urbane
75. verbose
76. vexation
77. vista
78. wanton
79. wheedle 
80. yammer