Every week the entire student body of Arrowhead receives the same email from English teacher Terri Carnell: the word of the week. But where does this word come from, and do students even pay attention to it?

“The word of the week started in 2013,” says Carnell. “Our Reading PCT [professional collaboration time] group was looking at ways to inspire students to read more and to improve reading skills. Vocabulary is always in the top five ways, according to research, to improve reading comprehension, so our group made up of a teacher from every discipline, administration, and support staff decided the Word of the Week would be a way to involve the entire school–both campuses.”

“This year I haven’t really paid attention to the word of the week,” says AHS junior Max Quadracci. “I don’t check my email so I only ever see it if I choose to look up at the board in the cafeteria. I won like four times last year when they had the competitions for it in the library. I got a five dollar gift card to Subway.”

Carnell says, “We used to have a monthly contest with two winners from North and two from South.  Students needed to fill out red slips in the library stating where and how they heard the words being used in the school or they could write their own sentences using the words.  The entries were randomly selected in a drawing, and the prizes ranged from Prom tickets to gift cards to front row parking spots. We stopped the contest last year due to limited funds and low student interest at South.”

“It’s kind of weird but I like the word of the week,” says AHS sophomore Jesse Adams. “It’s one of those quirky things to ‘lighten’ the day, like how there’s a national day for the most random things, like ice cream day. It’s just a fun thing to know and pay attention to.”

According to Carnell, the words are chosen by teacher request or taken from the ACT or other college-bound word lists. Some words from previous weeks include: discretion, abject, assimilate, placate, indoctrination, galvanize.  

“Teachers frequently send words that their students have struggled with or that their students will need to know for future lessons or words that they [the teachers] come across and think students would benefit from knowing,” says Carnell. “In past years, we tried to complement the monthly themes of the Arrowhead Way, but we are currently not doing that. The words vary from year to year; hopefully no repeats since there are so many words to choose from.”

In addition to learning the word of the week, English teachers also use those words as vocabulary on the ninth grade English final.

According to English teacher Michelle Verkler, the English final has a section specifically for the word of the week, and they are tested on the words of the week from each of the different semesters.

Students can find the word of the week via email from Carnell, or on the slideshow in the cafeteria. However, due to the change in the Arrowhead website format, they can no longer be found on the AHS website.