Vocabulary Goodness - The Partner Knowledge Rater

We are about to enter the journey that is molecular genetics in my Biology classes.  I always start by having them do a little vocabulary goodness with four words that they absolutely must understand in order for them to be successful for the next two months: gene, allele, chromosome, and DNA.  I also insist that they understand not only what the words are, but how those words are connected.  In order to do this, I use a deceptively simple strategy called a Partner Knowledge Rater.  
Below is an example for your eyeballs:

Why deceptively simple?  Because it looks like an innocent little chart that students fill in....in fact, it looks a lot like a worksheet.  But, just like with any strategy, it's all about how it's used.  Here's how I used this strategy with those words I mentioned previously:
1. Before I even had students access the document above in Google Classroom, they had to grab a small whiteboard and draw each of the four words (gene, allele, chromosome, and DNA).  In the answer to my daily thought-provoker, they had to tell me which one was the hardest and why.  Since I have my class openers set up on a blog page where it emails me when students answer them, I read through their responses as they came in on my computer.  (The most confusing one? Allele, hands-down.) This served as a nice formative assessment so I would know which words to hit hardest at the end of class when we reviewed the words.  I also had students show each other their drawings and make any changes they wanted.  I then drew what I would have drawn for each word, but did not explain why I would have drawn those pictures.  I wanted to leave that open for discussion later.
2. Even thought the reading is listed first in the document, I then had students skip down to the Partner Knowledge Rate chart.  Since they already drew, I had them take a stab at what they thought the words meant.  This is where a lot of students tend to shut-down, mainly because they are products of the "you better get it right" schooling system we have created.  I had to really encourage some students to put something down, emphasizing that this wasn't about rightness - it was about the reasonableness of their answers.
3. I then had students discuss with a partner what they wrote in the first column.  Their job was to come up with a definition together and then write that down for each word in the second column.  I make a rule at this point that they can't just use one person's definitions - they have to discuss and come up with a common definition together.
4. Now students were asked to scroll back up and read the reading, doing two things while they read in order to make reading an active rather than passive process: 1) Highlighting whatever they didn't understand, and 2) Highlighting each vocabulary word and summarizing the definition (at a level 9, or "know it and own it" level according to my scoring scale) using the Comment feature in Google Docs.  
5. Students filled in the third column in the chart labeled "Third Try - After Reading."  In groups, they discussed anything they didn't understand in the reading - and if someone else in the group did understand it, it was their job to explain it to them.  They also shared their definitions, and students changed their definitions if they wished in their charts.
6. I reviewed the words with them, asking them what they thought the words mean and then just tweaking any minor errors.
7. Now that students know what the words mean, I usually ask them to do something in writing to show that they understand the connections between the words.  In the example above, students have to do some writing afterwards in order to show they understand how those words hang together.  Also note that I have another column in the chart that asks students to write what it isn't.  This piece of Frayer Model goodness wasn't slipped in by accident - for this particular set of words, students sometimes try and use them interchangeably.  Since I want students to use these words accurately and not use them for one another, I added this column as an extra bit of practice in making sure they knew the difference between the words along with what the words meant.
This strategy took the entire class period - and I didn't even get to the part where students make connections (saving that special morsel of goodness for Monday).  Is it easier to just tell students what the words mean or have them look them up?  Absolutely.  Does feeding them definitions or having them copy definitions actually teach them strategies and skills to acquire vocabulary on their own?  Nope.  Also notice that students were doing all three things that people do to learn - write, draw, and talk.  This strategy is literally bursting with good learning stuff.
The main reason, however, that I love using the Partner Knowledge Rater strategy because it really teaches students how to make their own meaning from reading rather than latching on to someone else's understanding and passing it off as their own like a giant learning leech.  It requires more class time and more effort on the part of students, but the goal is, after all, having students do the work of learning so they can learn how to learn,  And they can't do that if we're doing the work for them by handing them our own understandings.
Want more vocabulary strategies like this one?  Check out this book, which is where I first learned of the Partner Knowledge Rater. Have any other awesome vocabulary strategies?  Share them in the comments!