1. Choose your word.
This should be a word that has importance to you and that means something to you personally. It could be something like “courage,” “abundance,” or “peace.” Or it could be a word that is important to you because of your unique experience. For example, it might be a word related to health care if someone you know and love is in a health crisis. Or it might be a word related to the environment if your area has been affected by climate change. Here are some tips for choosing a word for Word of the Year:
- Choose a word that is meaningful to you.
- Choose a word that is inspiring or thought-provoking.
- Take a look at the most searched-for Wordsmyth words in the year 2023. You may find some ideas or inspiration there.
Special tips for educators
Here are 3 sample wordlists for teachers to create assignments using Vocabulary Notebook.
These words have been chosen from the list of most searched-for words and have been selected as good potential words for the Word of the Year contest. Writing a little about each of these words in the Vocabulary Center’s “Vocabulary Notebook” is a good way to help students start thinking about the meaning of words and their meaningfulness to themselves. In completing the short essay for Word of the Year, students may decide to use one of the words from their Vocabulary Notebook assignment, or they may be inspired to think of their own word.
- Click the list that matches your students’ level to launch the list on the activities page.
- Click “preview” to view and edit the list as you like.
- Click “save copy in my lists.” The list will be available to use in the lesson makers right away. The saved list can be found in “My Wordlists” under “My Wordsmyth.”
Learn more about Vocabulary Center and Teacher Tools.
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2. Write about your word.
Here are some tips and suggestions for writing about your word:
- Write about why you chose this word.
- Explain how you define its meaning for yourself. That is, how does the word make sense in your life?
- Explain what possible impact the thing or idea represented by this word has had on your life.
3. Submit your Word of the Year entry.
Share your word of the year with Wordsmyth. We’ll choose 3 participants and give them free subscriptions as a reward. Submission is open now. We are looking forward to hearing from you. Stay tuned for more updates.
Happy Wordsmything!