Creative Words

Here is a fun activity to stimulate your students’ creativity. Present them with something that occurs in everyday life, but for which there is no word to describe it. Have your students brainstorm descriptive words they might use.
For example, how about when you grade students’ final exams and find that many did poorly. An appropriate descriptive word might be “factigue.”
Have your students create descriptive words for the following.

  • An incompetent person who insists on giving advice.
  • Frequently looking in the refrigerator when you are bored.
  • Suddenly realizing what you could have said to someone hours after they have insulted or annoyed you.
  • Wanting to leave a voice mail for someone only to actually have them answer the phone.
  • That catchy melody that keeps running through your head without your being able to stop it.

You can follow up by having your students identify other situations that need a descriptive word.