SWRL to SWIRL to SCRAWL and DO

I am glad to know that research is bearing out strategies I learned to use with ELL and Gifted endorsements. SWRL is an ELL Strategy endorsed and used heavily in my school district. Some experts at Indian Creek ELementary School added the concept of Illustrating and the acronym turned into SWIRL. Students were to do the following tasks for each vocabulary word, in no particular order: Speak the work, Write the word, Illustrate the word, Read the word, and Listen to the word spoken or read aloud.  I really liked this strategy when I learned it and implemented it immediately because it worked with all levels of the ELL students spectrum and it also worked with my Gifted students. I am for any strategy that works for multiple types of students.   

SWIRL is one ELL specific strategy that works well with Gifted education. Acting, Collaborating, and Organizing were also strategies that I have used myself, a native English speaker, to learn and retain subject-specific vocabulary when I was in law school and graduate school.  

I teach AP and upper level courses in computer science and programming, so, I don’t necessarily give word-lists to students, but I would have a word-wall of sorts. If the assignment is that they do “ASWIRL” for a particular vocabulary word, even if it is out of context, then those are made available to the rest of the students, then they can collaborate and use each other as well. hmmm….speak write illustrate read listen act collaborate — swirlac.
I will hereby give vocabulary and suggest students work with each word using “ASWIRL” or SCRAWL & DO, a little acronym that I cobbled for my AP students in particular.