We haven’t written about the school where we draw much of our inspiration, and where we conduct much of our research. We were on the design team for Health Sciences High and Middle College, a public charter school in San Diego, CA that opened in 2007.  A unique feature of the school is its partnership with Sharp Healthcare, the largest non-profit employer in the county. Students at the school begin hospital internships starting in ninth grade. We could go on about the wonderful students, staff, and families at HSHMC, but we thought we would let them tell you themselves. We hope you enjoy this 5-minute student video. Click here to view it on YouTube.

We’ve long been big fans of Visual Thesaurus (www.visualthesaurus.com) because it provides writers and readers with a graphic representation of the relationship between words. This is a great tool (and one we use frequently in our own writing) when you are looking for that “just right” word. The ability to discern the subtle difference between words is the mark of a person with a great vocabulary. One of our favorite methods for teaching this to students is called Shades of Meaning. We use paint chips to represent a gradient of words. Check out this VT link to find out more about the Shades of Meaning activity, featured in Word Wise and Content Rich Grades 7-12, published by Heinemann,  at http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/booknook/1765/