Please note:  This is a flex course, meaning it is video-based and that interaction occurs asynchronously in the Outschool classroom. If you would prefer a live course, I offer these as one-time classes as well. 

If you've ever looked at a vocabulary list and thought, "Too easy!" this class is for you. Over four weeks, we will learn and practice 40 puzzling, impressive, and extremely useful vocabulary words that you could very well slip into your college entrance essays... or just use to perplex your friends! 

Similar to sessions of my regular Vocabulary Workshop, the first part of every video will be a presentation and discussion of the 10 words. Students are encouraged to attempt pronunciation and to reason through the meaning based on images before seeing the actual definition. Then, students and the instructor will discuss the word, its part of speech, and its narrow and wide implications/applications. Who might use such a word, and in what circumstances? 

The second part of the video involves students testing their familiarity with the word. Along with that, we will list synonyms and antonyms as well as discuss the etymology of the word. 

Additional activities in the video each week include a discussion of etymology for a specific root, an activity where students have to replace weak words within a text, deciding whether the vocab words are used correctly in sentences, and writing their own sentences/paragraphs based on an image or prompt. 

Each week, students will have access to a Quizlet (online flashcards) and a Nearpod activity that includes matching words with definitions, a fill-in-the-blank story, and an activity that requires them to understand whether the word is used correctly in a sentence. 

The Set 1 word list is: jejune, emollient, anathema, espouse, grandiloquence, inchoate, pulchritude, avuncular, vicissitude, and bugbear. 

The Set 2 word list is: adumbrate, propinquity, antipode, multifarious, opprobrious, mephitic, ataraxy, vouchsafe, circumlocution, and preternatural. 

The Set 3 word list is: abstruse, vaunt, sybarite, nihilism, subsume, commodious, imbroglio, sententious, munificent, and canard. 

The Set 4 word list is: concomitant, impecunious, rectitude, sinecure, debouch, philistine, inveterate, mountebank, preclude, and specious.