Kleptomaniac by Quin, Kyle and Hayden, a winner of our 2014 contest.
Updated | We have announced our contest winners here.
We’ve been publishing a Word of the Day every school day since our blog began, and in 2013, just as we were about to hit 1,000 words, we announced our first Vocabulary Video Contest.
We liked the results so much that we brought it back in 2014, and now, for a third time, in 2016.
So, along with our annual collaborators for Word of the Day — the linguists who run Vocabulary.com — we invite you to create a short video that defines or teaches any of the words in our collection, which now nearly 1,500 words strong.
You have until Feb. 23 at 7 a.m. Eastern time to enter. All the rules and regulations, plus some inspiration from past winners, are below.
As we like to remind you each year: Tenacity + a desire to edify + an enterprising nature – sloth = a beguiling result.
A winner of the 2013 contest: Bifurcate, by Sam Jenks
I’m in! What are the rules and guidelines?
— All words must come from our Word of the Day feature.
— Each word must be pronounced and defined, and the part of speech must be given.
— All definitions must come from either the Word of the Day or Vocabulary.com. If there are several definitions, you may use just the first one if you like.
— You must be 13 to 19 years old, but can be from anywhere in the world.
— Your video should be no more than 15 seconds, but can be shorter.
— You can work alone, with a partner or in a group, but only one submission per student, please, whether you’re working alone or with others.
— Use your imagination. You can act the word out, animate it, use puppets, draw, sing a song, create a dance, incorporate photographs, create a Claymation, or anything else that will help viewers understand and learn your word.
— Post a link to the video as a comment on this blog post or on this Vocabulary.com page along with the name or names of everyone who worked on the video. We will watch the videos first to make sure they are appropriate before we approve your comment, so don’t worry if you don’t see your link for a day or two.
— Please make sure your video is public so that we can see it without a password.
— The contest ends on Feb. 23 at 7 a.m. Eastern time.
— Here is a PDF of all 1,486 words we have published through Jan. 14, 2016.
So we only post a link to our video on your blog. Where do we post the videos themselves?
Anywhere that you, your teachers and your parents or guardians are comfortable with, but please make sure we don’t need a password to access it.
You can post on YouTube, TeacherTube, SchoolTube, Vimeo or even on Google Docs or anywhere else that provides an embed code so we can post your final product on our blog if you win.
This page on “Video in the Classroom,” from EdTechTeacher.org, offers a useful overview of how and where you might film and post.
Of course, please follow the Terms of Service for whatever platform you use.
Where can I look for inspiration?
A 2014 winner: Aldric G. defines somnambulist.
Your first stop should be the posts featuring our 2014 and 2013 winners.
But if you’d like to learn more about developing vocabulary through multimodal expression, you might read some of the work of Prof. Bridget Dalton. In this piece for Literacy Beat, she describes the step-by-step process she went through with her graduate students to have them create short videos.
How can I choose a word, then learn enough about it to make a video?
To choose your word, you can click back through our Word of the Day feature to see about 10 at a time, or you can scan this lengthy PDF list of all 1,486 words we published through Jan. 14, 2016. (Teachers, you might choose the specific words from that list that you would like your students to use.)
Next, look up the word by putting it, along with the phrase “Word of the Day,” into “search this blog.” Read the entry to learn its definition and see how it has been used in The Times.
You might next head to the Vocabulary.com dictionary, where you’ll find a friendly explanation and a rich supply of authentic usage examples from both current and classic sources.
Finally, you can also play an adaptive game on Vocabulary.com to learn the entire list of nearly 1,500 words. Just visit this page and click list 1, 2 3, 4, 5 or 6 to learn each.
Take a look at the entries for retinue and uproarious — both from the Word of the Day — as examples. Once you have a handle on the word’s meaning and how it is commonly used, you can start to think about the most effective way to teach that word in a 15-second video.
Yet another of 2013’s winners: serendipity by Nina T.
Thank you for participating. Post the link to your video, along with the name or names of all those who worked on it, in the comments field.
You can also post your questions there, and we’ll answer them in bold as soon as we can.
And if you want to know what other challenges we’ll be featuring on the blog this year, check our contest calendar.