Thesaurus project
helps students choose words wisely
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
FOR THE SEVENTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR, members of the Presque Isle Rotary Club donated and delivered thesauruses to third-graders at Zippel, Mapleton and Easton elementary schools. Here, Rotarians Leigh Smith and June Gallant go through some word choice exercises with students in Doreen Archer’s class at Zippel.
FRANK BEMIS, a member of the Presque Isle Rotary Club, along with his daughter, Emily, explain to third-graders in Emily’s class at Zippel Elementary School how to use the new thesauruses that were donated to the students by the Rotary Club. The money to purchase the thesauruses comes from a Rotary Youth Fund that is maintained every year thanks to the organization’s annual auction, which will be held Nov. 27-29.
PRESQUE ISLE — Third-graders at Zippel Elementary School were “happy” to receive their own thesauruses Oct. 25 from Presque Isle Rotary Club members. Now after learning more about the resource tool, they can also describe their emotions as “delighted,” “ecstatic,” “pleased” or “thrilled.”
For the seventh consecutive year, members of the Rotary Club donated thesauruses to third-graders at Zippel, Mapleton and Easton elementary schools.
“When I was the incoming president of Rotary several years ago and thinking about a project that would be worth doing, I saw that another club had done something similar with dictionaries,” said Sharon Campbell, who co-chairs the literacy committee with June Gallant. “I reached out to the area schools to get their thoughts and they mentioned that thesauruses would be more useful and help strengthen the students’ writing skills. We chose thesauruses, and the overwhelming enthusiasm among the club members has kept the momentum going from year to year.
“From our perspective, literacy is a keystone to the future for these kids. Hopefully they’ll be members of this community and good employees, and this also serves as a way to spark an interest in community service,” she said. “We tell them a little about Rotary and get them interested in it. [Through this project] it also gives us a chance to talk to them about choosing what they say. Sometimes it’s just about finding that right word and this may spark that interest to make them think just a little bit longer about what it is that they choose for words.”
Calling the thesaurus project a “fabulous” idea, Zippel teacher Doreen Archer said her students will use the tool in their creative writing pieces.
“They tend to use the same words over and over again, so we’ll use it to find more interesting words to make their writing pieces more colorful,” she said. “We have a few thesauruses in the classroom, but we haven’t really delved into using them. Now this will spur me on to use them more.”
The thesauruses came at the right time for Archer’s students as they were working on a haunted house project.
“We made haunted houses and now we’re in the process of writing a real estate ad to sell it to someone,” she said. “They’ll use their thesauruses to find more interesting words to sell their haunted house.”
Student Wilson Saucier said using his new thesaurus will make him a better writer.
“I used a thesaurus a little bit in second grade, but now I have my own. I’m going to use it when I write stories,” he said. “It will help me find opposite words and similar words. I like to write, and I’ll probably use my new thesaurus a lot.”
Campbell said the club purchased 165 books.
“It’s about a $1,200 investment, but it’s well worth it,” she said. “We always leave one or two extras in case a new student moves to the area during the school year. We want them to have that same benefit.”
The money to purchase the thesauruses comes from a Rotary Youth Fund that is maintained every year thanks to the organization’s annual auction.
“Part of the proceeds from the auction do go to purchase the thesauruses,” said Campbell, “so supporting the auction — for community members who also think this is worthwhile — would be helpful to us.”
The 65th annual Radio-TV Auction will be held November 27-29.
