The Word Matrix is a tool designed to assist teachers in vocabulary instruction, but it has flexible applications in literary analysis and writing instruction as well. The interactive tool can be used to teach students the concepts of connotation and register; to help clarify differences between seemingly similar words; to explore the concept of diction in literary analysis; or to encourage more precision in word choice in student writing.

Using preconfigured word lists (or a list of synonyms they populate themselves), students organize words by their connotative charge on one axis, placing words with more negative connotations to the left and more positive connotations to the right. On another axis, students organize that same list based on their levels of relative register, from informal to formal. Students also have the option of providing a brief statement that justifies their placement of a word at a specific point on the matrix.

Visit this interactive tool at: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/word_matrix.

ReadWriteThink Lessons That Use This Tool

Brave New Words:  Novice Lexicography and the Oxford English Dictionary (9-12)
Students will become novice lexicographers as they explore recent new entries to the dictionary, learn the process of writing entries for the Oxford English Dictionary, and write a new entry themselves.

Choose, Select, Opt, or Settle: Exploring Word Choice in Poetry (9-12)
Students use an online tool to investigate the effects of word choice in Robert Frost’s “Choose Something Like a Star.” The results of the investigation allow them to construct a more sophisticated understanding of speaker, subject, and tone.